Planning For The Unthinkable: Essential Tools For Parents Of Minor Children Approximately three-fourths of Americans do not have a basic will. Many of the same people also have children under the age of 18, which underscores a major misunderstanding about estate plans: They can accomplish much more than just handling financial assets (money, accounts, and [...]
3 Asset Protection Tips You Can Use Now A common misconception is that only wealthy individuals and people in high-risk professions, such as doctors or lawyers, need an asset protection plan. However, anyone can be sued. A car accident, foreclosure, unpaid medical bills, or an injured tenant can result in a monetary judgment that could [...]
Help Your Clients Clean Up Their Affairs with These Lists Clients Need An Inventory Of What They Own Before you can help your clients get to where they want to go on their wealth journey, you need to understand where they are right now. Doing so involves inventorying their assets (everything they own) and keeping [...]
Who Needs An Estate Plan? If you are reading this, you need an estate plan. Why? The short answer is that everyone age 18 and older needs an estate plan. It does not matter whether you are old or young, have built up considerable wealth or are just entering adulthood—you need a written plan to [...]
Beware of Trust Scams & How to Spot Them Trusts are widely used in estate planning to protect and transfer a person’s assets (money, accounts, property, etc.), sometimes in a tax-advantaged manner. Some trusts are highly complex, with multiple parties, intricate structures, specialized legal terms, and references to arcane tax law that can be difficult [...]
How To Give Real Property To a Loved One At Your Death Without Probate Court Involvement A home is often one of the most important assets that people own. Therefore, most people want to stay in their home until they die and then have a loved one receive it. One common way to pass a [...]
Be Careful Relying on Life Insurance to Provide for Loved Ones In an estate plan, life insurance can be used as a source of immediate liquidity for beneficiaries by offering a tax-free, lump-sum payment upon the insured’s death. About half of Americans have a life insurance policy. The primary reason people purchase life insurance is [...]
Wills, Trusts, & Dying Intestate: How They Differ Most people understand that having an estate plan benefits them and their loved ones. However, many individuals do not initiate the estate planning process because they do not fully understand the nuances of foundational estate planning tools such as a will and a trust and the full [...]
Caution: Using a DIY Deed To Avoid Probate Can Lead To Unintended Consequences One common way to avoid the probate requirement for real estate after the owner dies is to add children or other individuals to the property title as joint owners with rights of survivorship. When joint owners have survivorship rights and one joint [...]
Have You Checked Your Beneficiary Designations Lately? You regularly check the balances of your retirement, bank, and investment accounts. But when was the last time you checked the beneficiary designations on these accounts (and really, all the other accounts that allow you to name a beneficiary)? It may have been years since you first opened [...]
