A buy-sell agreement is a legal provision of an estate plan that details how the estate owner’s business will transition to different ownership when he or she dies. Buy-sell agreements are critical for business owners’ estate plans, as they help ensure that a business can continue to thrive even if…
Many of our clients have causes or organizations that matter deeply to them and that they want to financially support. There are many ways to incorporate charitable giving into your estate plan, and the tool you end up choosing to structure your charitable giving will depend on your own goals…
Cryptocurrency, compared to other kinds of assets, is relatively new, and the legal landscape around cryptocurrency is still developing. How, then, do individuals with cryptocurrency incorporate the asset into their estate plan? There are several basic considerations that can be helpful to keep in mind when deciding how to make…
When you go through a divorce, does your estate plan automatically update to remove your ex-spouse? Or are there steps you need to take to make sure everything is in line with your wishes? At McCulloch & Miller, we consistently tell our clients that they should update their estate plans…
It is natural to want to set your children up for success after you are gone. How does naming children as beneficiaries to an estate plan work? How does the process look different if the children are minors? These are important questions to consider. On today’s blog, we explain how…
For many of our clients and their loved ones, pets are a part of the family. It therefore makes sense to include a provision in these clients’ wills or estate plans to make sure their pets are well-protected. One mechanism that pet owners can insert into their estate plans to…
If you own a farm or a ranch, it is important that you are thinking through best practices for including that property in your estate plan. Life is full of the unexpected, and you never know when you might need a solid plan in place for what will happen to…
Do you own a small business? Have you accounted for that business in your estate plan? If you have, this is a good first step in protecting your business in the long-term future. After you die, your small business might be subject to the probate process. As part of the…
If you are the executor in charge of overseeing the probate process for a loved one’s estate, there are certain duties you must keep in mind. One of these duties is sorting through the decedent’s debts. While these debts can certainly elongate the probate process, there are nonetheless important to…
So many factors go into a person’s estate plan, including a thoughtful inventory of the planner’s assets and a careful decision about how to divide those assets up. At our firm, we sometimes encounter difficult probate disputes over a decedent’s collectibles and heirlooms. On today’s blog, we cover some basic…