Ah August! Although I was born and raised in the east, where fall was after Labor Day and the beginning of the new school year was signaled by the turning of the leaves; here in Arizona the temperatures are still in triple digits when the school year begins, and the only sign that a new [...]
Like most estate planning lawyers, all through the first decade of the 21st century, I thought we would not see a return to the $1,000,000 exemption. As a consequence, the excellent estate plans I’ve been drafting for the past 9 years are now out of date. Under the new and unexpected tax laws these [...]
Do you think you can create your own estate plan? In the right circumstances, the answer may be yes… But how do you determine what are the right circumstances? A recent US News and World Report article on do-it-yourself planning gives both sides of the argument. There is a growing recognition that not enough people [...]
Sandy and I recently took a rare weekend off and spent a couple of days in Del Mar where we spent some time attending an estate planning conference, but mostly we enjoyed the sunsets and the good food at Jake’s on the beach (probably our favorite place to have good food and people-watch) near downtown [...]
My inspiration for today’s post comes from this recent article in the New York Times about debt relief firms, and a few questions I was asked by a prospective client. As a former consumer debtor lawyer who represented many good families through bankruptcy proceedings in the 1980s and 1990s, I have an intense dislike for [...]
Is your estate planner a trusted advisor or a guerilla problem solver? Does he see you as a person or merely a bank account? All too often lawyers or others billing themselves as “estate planners” perceive that you want the lowest cost, lowest maintenance product available so you can feel comforted that you have [...]
Who would you like to have with you when you are ill or injured in the hospital? Most likely you would hope to have your partner of many years there with you to hold your hand when things get rough. Although many of us take for granted that we would be allowed that luxury, until [...]
When fewer than half of all adult Americans have estate plans, you must ask yourself: why? One answer is that many people think they have already taken care of how their assets will pass to their heirs through joint tenancy. Joint tenancy works well if nothing out of the ordinary exists or occurs; but there [...]
In my last blog post I promised to give some concrete examples of why an updated trust is better than one that simply keeps the “status quo”. I will forgo the obvious examples such as inheriting money or growing your assets so that your original plan will no longer work. I’ll also skip over the [...]
It happened again. After telling the audience at a recent seminar that trusts really are living documents that need to be updated periodically, I was approached by several attendees afterward asking if I really meant their trust needed to be updated. After all, they only want to make minor changes; they don’t need anything [...]