You did the right thing for your family. You sat down and drew up a will. Maybe you saw the WillMaker program on sale at Costco, or maybe you said, "I drew up my will 30 years ago and like it the way it is, and I don’t need to pay no stinkin' lawyer to [...]
A lot of people come into my office and ask me if they should transfer their real estate into their kid's name while they are still living. Here is the typical reason they give for wanting to do that: If my child goes on the title to the property, (1) I save money by not [...]
More and more trust documents are being created due to an aging population. I’m seeing increasing problems administering trusts with provisions that allow family and loved ones to reside in a property included in the trust. Problems that commonly occur are payment of home expenses, exclusive possession of the premises, and downright disagreements among the [...]
I was reading yet another sad story about a family that set up a sloppy estate plan. The plan involved a mother and four children. The mother had a bank account with roughly $400,000 in it, and she was going to split the cash into four equal shares. However, for lack of better judgment, the [...]
I recently came across a question by a father. He wanted to know how to protect his inheritance that he wanted to leave to his son and daughter. The father had acquired about four rental properties and wanted to give his son and daughter two properties each. All the properties had no mortgages and were [...]
I was just reading a legal question-and-answer website about a couple who was dating and wanted to know when they needed to update their wills. The couple has a basic will plan, but they plan on getting married and having kids within the next few years. It sounds like this couple is on the ball [...]
I was just reading a legal question-and-answer site about a family who could not find their estate planning documents. They wanted to know what to do. Apparently, the family had done their estate planning quite a while ago, and the relative in question had just passed away. Now the family is furiously tearing up the [...]
You may be wondering, Do I need to put my cars in my living trust? Here’s the short answer: if you are talking about the cars you use every day to go to and from work, you probably do not need to bother going down to the DMV and changing your ownership records. After all, [...]
I just got finished reading another online post about a living trust plan going wrong. The decedent had used Legal Zoom to create his legal trust plan. According to the post, the decedent had sent form letters provided by Legal Zoom to his banks and financial institutions to change the title of his assets to [...]
I was just reading a question on a legal question-and-answer website about contesting a living trust. The inheritance for the beneficiary of the trust had been significantly reduced, and the questioner wanted to know who pays for attorney’s fees and costs in an unsuccessful contest. I felt I should write about this because there can [...]
