According to a New York Times article, Michael Jackson did have a Revocable Living Trust in place at the time of his death. A Revocable Trust makes good sense for a public figure because it is privately administered and not subject to the lengthy, costly, and public Probate process. There are quite a few good articles […]
Every now and again clients ask what happens when someone murders someone for an inheritance. Can the murderer inherit from the victim’s estate? The simple answer is: No. If the potential beneficiary of certain assets murders the decedent, he or she is denied inheriting from the decedent’s estate – including both probate and non-probate assets. […]
If Congress ultimately expands gun legislation, then it could have a profound impact on an individual’s ability to transfer guns to their beneficiaries. Bequeathing a gun in an estate is very different from passing on other personal property. Because a gun is a regulated piece of personal property at both the federal and state levels, […]
We have written about the benefits of utilizing revocable trusts for incapacity planning, probate avoidance and out-of-state real estate. However, we often get the question from couples, “Why do we need two trusts? Why can’t we just have one joint trust?” To be honest, in some instances, a joint revocable trust might be the appropriate option […]
When a spouse or parent passes away, the surviving spouse or children often worry about what will be left to them. This concern is not necessarily driven by greed but rather by the unknown of what will happen next. Are we going to be kicked out of the house? Will I be able to keep […]
One of the purposes of probate is to provide notice of the decedent’s death to creditors so that they can seek payment for any unpaid debts. As Jayne Sykora mentioned in her post, What Happens to Debt at Death, personal representatives are able to identify creditors of the estate through the decedent’s mail and bills. […]
Safe deposit boxes are a great resource to store and protect valuable assets. However, they can cause problems during an estate administration. The first issue that arises is the lack of knowledge that the decedent had a safe deposit box. Often the individual administering the estate is neither aware of the existence nor the location […]
Every now and again a client will ask for a life estate to be created; however, most often the client does not understand what exactly it is, how it is created or the potential benefits and pitfalls of creating such an estate. In this post, I will attempt to give a basic overview of a […]
Historically, determining a decedent’s heirs was easy – determine all of the decedent’s living family members on the date of decedent’s death and if decedent’s wife was pregnant on the date of his death, wait to see if the child is born alive. Now, however, science has provided us with the ability to freeze genetic […]
My clients frequently claim that their number one goal in establishing an estate plan is to “avoid probate.” Upon further discussion, I discover that most have a number of misconceptions regarding what probate actually is. Probate Probate is, quite simply, the legal process by which assets owned by a decedent are transferred to the rightful […]
Although most of us would consider our estate planning attorney to be superhuman, the fact of the matter is that sometimes they are unable to perform their duties. In a recent case, the district court found that the physical and mental ailments of an estate planning attorney did not provide reasonable cause for the estate […]