One of the key tenements of estate planning is making your wishes known about who you want to raise your children if something were to happen to you as a parent. No one wants to think about a morbid situation like this. But your decision can be the key difference between choosing who you want [...]
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 [...]
I was just reading on a legal website about how an uncle held a power of attorney over the deceased grandmother, and now the uncle is excluding certain family members from attending the grandmother's funeral. It sounds like that family had some major issues with one another to get to the point that one family [...]
I admit I am pretty young and had these exact same thoughts when I was just getting out of college. I wasn’t married and had no kids. What did I have to worry about? Estate planning is for folks that actually have something, right? If you are 18 years or older and can make your [...]
Over the Christmas holiday, I started thinking about our family’s real estate investments and other families in similar situations. As I mentioned in my personal bio, I grew up in the real estate investment business by working with my dad in his rental homes, gutting them, painting walls, and the like. My parents have several [...]
Can I modify the terms of a living trust? I run across this question a lot in my office and online from spouses and children of families who have created living trusts to protect their families and assets. The short answer is this: It depends. Let’s look at some ways a living trust can be [...]
