Most people do it to save money, but they may overlook or forget to take care of some important details – details that may eventually cost them much more than the amount they could save.
Wills, trusts and estate plans should be crafted with the help of an estate planning attorney. Don’t try this at home all alone!
The Meridian (MS) Star’s article, titled “Reasons not to write your own will,” says that some of the big mistakes include these:
Many people set up trusts to help provide for loved ones and favorite causes after they pass away. A trust can help manage the wealth you wish to transfer and ensures the efficient distribution of assets—such as property or a sum of money—over a set period of time. Yet a trust is only as strong as the trustee overseeing it.
A trustee is the individual or company that administers a trust for the benefit of named beneficiaries. Duties can range widely and may include paying bills and taxes, and managing property and investments.
Forbes recently had a nice article about this titled “How To Choose The Right Trustee For Your Estate.” Most importantly, the article says a trustee “has a legal fiduciary duty to manage a trust on a beneficiary’s behalf,” by always acting in the beneficiary’s best interests, as outlined by the trust.
Thinking about pulling up stakes when you retire? Review this checklist of financial concerns first.
Moving during retirement is not just about the scenery. You need to understand the full financial impact that can come from relocation to or from Houston.
Morningstar’s recentarticle, titled “6 Questions to Ask Before Relocating in Retirement,” sets out some key questions for you to answer:
Let's take a closer look at what a life estate is and how using one could help you save your family home.
Home is where the heart is. The thought of losing your home can be devastating. What options do you have to prevent this from happening?
Motley Fool’s recent article, titled “What a Life Estate Is And How It Could Save Your Home,” tells us about life estates.
Some high-net worth families still face the challenge of reducing their estate to minimize or eliminate estate taxes, although the federal estate tax exclusion is currently larger than it has ever been. The portability of unused exclusion amounts are at $5.43 million for individuals and $10.86 million for couples. But a 40 percent top estate tax rate on amounts above the exemption concerns those with large estates.
High-net worth individuals managing their estates are better off working with an experienced estate planning attorney, The Marietta Daily Journal confirms in a recent article, titled “Estate reduction ensuring wealth transfer to heirs.” With the changes in estate and gift tax laws, have an expert on your side to ensure your documentation is drafted properly and work with your financial advisor to plan asset transfers to heirs.
An easy move for wealthy families is gifting. Individuals can gift up to $14,000 per year, per individual without incurring a gift tax. The amount doubles for spouses. There’s an informational gift tax return to be filed, but there’s no tax due if the gift is under the annual exclusion limit.
What can you do to push past the emotional aspects of estate planning to make sure your surviving family members can successfully deal with issues that may arise after you pass away?
Start early. Patrick Severo is the senior vice president and financial advisor at RBC Wealth Management. He also has three kids and knew he needed a plan to take care of them after he is gone. Severo recently told Forbes in the article titled, “Don't Let Emotion Sabotage Your Estate Plan,”that, although the discussion about what happens after you pass away feels uncomfortable, the earlier you can begin, the better off you’ll be because these things take time – maybe even years!
To help the people you care about handle the financial, administrative and familial consequences of your eventual passing, be as transparent as possible about what they can expect from your estate. Mismatched expectations can often cause trouble that could’ve easily been avoided if the news wasn’t coming as such a surprise.
For the last several decades, you’ve always made these kinds of decisions together. What can already be an emotional task of drafting a will is even more so after the loss of a lifelong partner. Even in the event of a terminal illness diagnosis with time to prepare in advance, Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor Cinda J. Collins of RBC Wealth Management often felt overwhelmed during the settlement of her husband’s estate after he passed away from leukemia.
While the best course of action is always to plan together ahead of time, Forbes published estate planning advice for surviving spouses in “The Widow's Guide To Estate Planning And Wealth Transfer.”
Make Sure You Have a Professionally Drafted Will. To be as prepared as possible in the event of a spouse’s passing, talk to an experienced estate attorney together as a couple to ensure all your affairs are in order. If a spouse passes away unexpectedly without planning, the surviving partner will have headaches.
In some parts of the U.S., like West Virginia, without a will, your estate is first distributed according to your marital status and children, including those of previous marriages. However, if you have no spouse or children, you may want to pull out your family tree to see who could be in the running.
When there is no will in place, commonly in West Virginia, the current spouse of a married couple with or without one or more descendants receives the full estate. However, your spouse would receive only 60% of the estate if he or she had children with you and also a previous marriage. Your children would then receive the remaining 40% of the estate. But if you were the spouse with kids from a previous marriage(s), then all your children will inherit one-half of your estate, and the other half to your current spouse.
Confused yet? That’s what The (Huntington, WV) Herald-Dispatch asks us in its recent article titled “Planning ahead: What happens if you don't have a will.”
Can you imagine not being notified if your parent had been injured, fell ill or had even passed away? With a recently increasing occurrence across the country, state representatives are proposing changes to ensure children have visitation rights to ailing parents.
Fox News shared Catherine Falk’s story in an article titled“'Columbo' daughter pushes for bill that protects the right to visit sick parents.” The daughter of Peter Falk, a five-time Emmy Award winner as Lt. Columbo, laughs as she recalls memories about her funny father, like forgetting about Christmas presents they had given him after he had put them in the trunk of his car, only to find them all there still the next year. But when he got sick, it was no laughing matter. Catherine claims she was kept out of the details of her father’s condition, including being able to see or talk to him. Thousands of adult children in America are finding themselves going through a similar experience.
In Falk’s case, she and her stepmother were locked in a court battle over conservatorship and access to Peter for years. In 2008, he became completely incapacitated from his advanced dementia. Catherine then decided to create the Catherine Falk Organization, which advocates for the rights of adult children to see their sick parents.
Here are six suggestions to help prepare for some of the most common stressful situations that can occur during elder care.
The role of an elder caregiver is not an easy one, and many Houston seniors find themselves taking on this role without any preparation.
A recent Forbes article, “6 Things Caregivers Must Do While There's Still Time,” explains that many family caregivers are part of what’s called “the sandwich generation.” They’ve just stopped caring for their own kids and now have to start to care for parents or older relatives.
