Houston Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Blog

Can Your Houston Heirs Legally Access Your Digital Assets?

Published on: July 28, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

No matter what steps you take or what laws are eventually passed, managing a digital estate for a loved one will always be a long, arduous, and painful process.

Digital estate planning is popping up in the news more and more as people are trying to figure out how to deal with digital assets of loved ones who have already passed. Gaining access to one's email and social media accounts after they die can be very difficult. It can be even more difficult for heirs to gain access to online financial accounts. For this reason, attorneys always stress that you should plan ahead and make sure you have come up with a good way for someone you trust to access any accounts you have.

Recently on PBS News Hour, another potential problem with access to digital accounts was raised in a segment titled “Dead and Online: What Happens to Your Digital Estate When You Die?” One of the interviewees points out that a family member attempting to gain access to your accounts after you pass away could be in violation of federal privacy laws and computer fraud and abuse laws. It could also be a criminal violation to break the terms of service of the website your family member is trying to gain access to in some circumstances.

Drawbacks of Family Limited Partnerships for Houston Families

Published on: July 25, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Family limited partnerships seem like an almost foolproof idea: A client can shield just about any amount of money from creditors while maintaining full control of the assets, and getting tax advantages to boot. But they’re not for everyone, and there can be serious pitfalls to an FLP that is carelessly invoked or improperly constructed.

Family Limited Partnerships, or FLPs, can help protect your assets from personal creditors and allow you to maintain control of the assets during your life. FLPs create a separate entity in which you can place an almost unlimited amount of assets. You can then give your family members limited partnership interests in the entity.

A recent article in Life Health Pro, titled “6 Pitfalls That Clients Eyeing an FLP Need to Consider,” points out the potential drawbacks of an FLP:

Houston College Graduates Need Estate Plans Too

Published on: July 24, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

After graduating from college, and even law school, the thought of drafting your estate plan probably did not make the top twenty on your "to-do" list, and why should it? The only thing most young professionals have when they first start out is debt. However, after you land your first job, preparing your estate plan needs to move quickly to the top of that elusive "to do" list.

Regardless of your age, you might not think you have very much – but you probably have enough to want to have a say in who gets what.Young people may not view estate planning as a necessity when just starting their careers, but the reality is they should plan how their assets will be distributed in case something were to happen to them.

Estate planning is more than just deciding how your assets will be distributed. That is a large part of it, but there are other documents every good estate plan should include. A recent article in the National Law Review, titled “Five Estate Planning Documents Every Young Professional Should Have,” lists the documents that every recent college graduate will want to include as part of his or her estate plan:

Deathbed Wills Can Be Contested, So Don’t Wait To Change Your Houston Plan!

Published on: July 23, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Three years and two trials later, the will remains the subject of a fierce probate fight in Sacramento Superior Court. Lawyers for the stepson and O’Brien’s brother have challenged the will as a fraud. They contend O’Brien didn’t have the mental capacity to amend the original trust.

Waiting until you are on your deathbed to create or change your will can cause a lot of chaos after you pass, so don't wait to make those changes! Take a lesson from the late Joseph Herb O’Brien. O'Brien was dying in a hospital room. For a long time he had an estate plan that left his entire estate in a trust, the sole beneficiary of which was his stepson. The stepson had a long history of legal problems. Shortly before O'Brien passed away, he dictated a new will to two friends. This new will left the vast majority of the estate to one of those friends instead of the stepson.

The Sacramento Bee has the full story of what is alleged to have happened in an article titled “Final wishes of a ‘good man’ or deathbed fraud? Judge to rule in probate case.” It is a good read that explains all of the minute details of the case. Basically, the judge has to decide whether O'Brien was competent to change his will at that time or whether his friends coerced him into changing it for their own gain.

The Power to Adjust the Trust

Published on: July 22, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Today’s low interest rates create special problems for those focused on income, including retirees and the income beneficiaries of trusts.

Prolonged periods of low interest rates can result in low trust income, creating conflict among beneficiaries. Many trusts are set up in a way that creates two different groups of beneficiaries. The first group are income beneficiaries who have a right to the current income the trust property generates. Another group are remainder beneficiaries. They get what is left in the trust when the trust ends. Income beneficiaries naturally want the income maximized and remainder beneficiaries want the principal maximized.

As Forbespoints out, in an article titled “With Interest Rates Low, Here's How To Boost Income From A Trust,” low interest rates make it difficult for trustees to keep both groups happy. There simply are not enough good investment vehicles available to keep both groups of beneficiaries happy in low interest rate environments. The solution is known as the power to adjust. This allows trustees to reclassify trust assets. Forbes has an example of how it can work: “By utilizing the power to adjust, trustees are able to invest in the best total return portfolio without regard to the amount of income it generates; so, for example, in the current low-rate climate, this may result in a portfolio that is primarily equity. The power to adjust allows the trustee to take a certain amount of principal, reclassify the assets as income, and distribute the assets to the income beneficiary.”

Keeping Your Houston Estate Plan Up-To-Date

Published on: July 21, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

"Many have not taken adequate steps to review and update these plans since the moment they were signed. Meanwhile, major life events such as marriage, the birth of a child or the launch of a business may have occurred."

Estate plans are not a one-shot deal. They are like a snapshot of your life at a particular point in time. An old estate plan shows how your property and life circumstances looked at the time it was made. But things change over time, and so should your estate plan.

If you never change your estate plan, it might stop doing what you want. As Forbes points out, in an article titled “Why You Should Update Your Estate Plan,” if you do not update your estate plan when your life circumstances change, then you might be risking costly legal battles for your heirs. Significant property acquisitions that are not accounted for in your estate plan can lead to problems. Having additional children or getting divorced can cause problems, if you do not change your estate plan. Tax law changes could make your old estate plan ineffectual.

The Digital Afterlife for Houston Estate Planning

Published on: July 18, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Planning for control of your personal information after you die used to be as simple as telling someone about the desk drawer or the fireproof box or the safe deposit box at the local bank. But in the era of smartphones and cloud computing services, that same stuff may be stored in digital formats on servers scattered across the globe.

What happens to your digital life after you have passed? Does it just automatically go away? Most people today have numerous online accounts. They have email accounts for work and personal use, accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and some people also have blogs or even their own websites. If you check the privacy policies on the sites where you have accounts, you will notice that most sites will not give out any information about your accounts without your prior permission and some will not give out information without a court order. Your digital life may or may not go on without you, so you must plan ahead of time.

As a recent New York Times article, “How to Digitally Avoid Taking It to the Grave,” points out, if you do not plan ahead regarding how someone else can access your accounts after you pass away, then you risk the loss of those accounts. In other cases, accounts you would want to carry on might disappear. It depends on the policies of the sites where you have accounts. Some states have passed laws granting executors access to digital accounts after the owners pass away, and there is an effort underway to pass a uniform law in every state.

Can Your Houston Estate Grow After Death?

Published on: July 17, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Who knew a “Walk on the Wild Side” could pay off so handsomely? Late rock legend Lou Reed left behind a $30 million fortune, The Post has learned. $20 million-plus in “money and other property” doesn’t include the approximately $10 million in gifts Reed left to his wife, sister and mother in his will. It also doesn’t include life insurance or retirement accounts. The funds are likely from Reed’s copyright and publishing interests …

Everyone probably knows some of the late Lou Reed's songs, such as “Walk on the Wild Side” and “Sweet Jane.” Even though Lou Reed was already a rock and roll legend, he had never had a true number one hit. The songs were not even in the top 10 in the United States. This left Reed with approximately $10 million in assets at the time of his death.

Reed's manager recently filed papers in court that he had already garnered another $20 million in assets for Reed's estate. The New York Post recently reported on how the money was likely earned. The article is titled “Lou Reed left behind $30 million fortune.”

Rising Costs of Special Needs Care

Published on: July 16, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

New studies are providing more current cost estimates. “What we found was shocking,” Mandell said. “This is a huge hit on families.”

The costs to care for a child with special needs is on the rise, as reported in a new study in the medical journal JAMA Pediatric. The study found that the total lifetime cost of supporting an individual with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is $1.4 million in the U.S.—with an added intellectual disability, the total rises to $2.4 million. Reuters recently reported on this study and its findings in an article titled "Raising an Autistic Child: Coping With the Costs."

These costs typically include an ongoing mix of special education programs, medical care, and lost wages as many parents of autistic children reduce their work hours or even quit their jobs to help their child full-time. The organization Autism Speaks estimates that it now takes roughly $60,000 annually to support someone with an ASD. Such costs can be so prohibitive that many affected families will move to states that offer a better collection of services.

Adding Your Collection to Your Houston Estate Plan – Does the Value Hold Up?

Published on: July 14, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Over the past few years pieces have not been selling as well as expected or not selling at all. Often the amount they are appraised for, and thus the amount the IRS views them as valuing, is not close to the amount that they garner at auction.

Have you ever watched the TV show Pawn Stars? The same process plays out on the show over and over again. Someone will bring in a rare item, the pawn store owner will call in an expert to appraise the item, the appraiser will give an approximate value, and then the store owner will offer to pay half the appraised value of the item.

Obviously, a pawn shop is not going to pay full price for anything. However, the spiel that the store owner often gives contains lessons. He explains to the customer that the appraisal value is how much the item might get at auction, but that it has to be the right auction with the right buyer and that in this economy nothing is going at auction for the full appraisal value.