A comprehensive estate plan ensures that wills, trusts, ownership forms and beneficiary designations are in sync with your wishes. Is your plan up-to-date? As the old adage puts it, most folks do not “plan to fail, they just fail to plan.” In this sense, leaving an inheritance behind can get…
While the dispute over inherited IRAs has not arisen often, it may crop up more in the future. Does an "inherited" retirement account remain a retirement account for the intended heir? This may sound like a rhetorical question, but it is currently one before the U.S. Supreme Court in the…
In the end, the goal is to convert what is otherwise a fleeting inheritance into a perpetual wealth management opportunity for the family. This goal can only be accomplished through proper, coordinated planning. Our goal of passing along wealth to the next generation is to ensure their wellbeing and happiness…
Done right, death-bed revisions may save their families income and estate taxes and prevent misunderstandings and administrative hassles. If not handled carefully, though, it can leave a will open to legal challenges that can drag on for many years … During one's final hours, people tend to review their last…
Discomfort with the details prevents many people from obtaining the necessary coverage. The kinds of insurances we are “required” to buy help us with the minor bumps and scrapes in life and are sometimes easy to think about, shop for or ensure that we have adequate coverage. Auto and homeowners…
"Kids inherit money. We don't want it." Sometimes too much inheritance all at once is a threat to moral development, it’s true, but sometimes a gift can threaten a college education by complicating financial aid. As parents of the college-bound understand to a dizzying degree, financial aid is a difficult…
Estate planning is the process of legally structuring the future disposition of current and projected assets. Estate planning is many things. In order to present a solid definition of this particular type of planning, a recent Forbes article posed the question, “What Is Estate Planning?” The article concludes that “Estate…
When Carol and Mike Brady got together on the classic TV show "The Brady Bunch," there wasn't a lot of discussion about how the couple would handle things like updating their life insurance policies to reflect their new, blended family, or covering the cost of things like braces and college…
A will may say to divide an estate equally among three children. But if a particular account is titled to pass to just one, only that beneficiary will get the account. Your Last Will and Testament is the legal document to put your wishes in writing and get it all…
Here are some potential pitfalls to keep in mind for couples who are thinking of keeping some or all of their assets separate. When two people have lived together outside of marriage for some time, the question of who owns what can get downright confusing. Obviously, jointly owned assets can…