Estate Plan

Schemers Steal Property of Deceased Neighbor with No Heirs

Published on: November 5, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Six Philadelphia men forged, cheated and lied their way into collecting a dead woman's house and car, police said.

If no heirs exist and no estate plan determines where your estate should go, it must be up for grabs. Right? Well, no. But unfortunately for one woman's estate, this scenario was all too real.

In 2010, a Philadelphia widow named Dorothy Kennedy passed away. She did not have an estate plan or any known heirs. By law her property, including her house and car, should have become government property, assuming no heirs could ever be found. However, Kennedy's neighbor had other plans.

Beneficiary Designations 101 for Houston Families

Published on: November 3, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

The decision about how to designate beneficiaries for your company retirement plan, life insurance policies, and other assets might seem like a no-brainer. Chances are you would like those near and dear to you to inherit any money you've accumulated during your lifetime, so making sure that happens should be as simple as writing their names on the appropriate forms, right? Not so fast.

Have you designated beneficiaries on the appropriate accounts? Are you sure you did it right?

A good estate plan uses a wide-variety of vehicles to distribute the estate. Today, that normally means that retirement accounts and life insurance are used to help quickly distribute assets to heirs after someone passes away. Because of this importance, you need to know how to go about designating beneficiaries to receive the assets.

Suspicions Arise When Doctor Is Added to Will

Published on: October 31, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Donna Spears, a longtime friend of centenarian Helen Schlesinger, claims in her Manhattan civil suit that New York-Presbyterian physician Dr. Lawson Moyer has broken the law by both treating the 470 Park Ave. resident and appointing himself as her power of attorney.

Can you trust your doctor with your will?

A recent article in The New York Post, titled "Doctor wrote himself into 102-year-old patient's will: suit," tells the story of a lawsuit recently filed in New York. Helen Schlesinger is 102 years old and has assets worth millions of dollars. In 2003, she wrote a will leaving the bulk of her estate to her friend, Donna Spears, and an unnamed family member. Spears has filed a lawsuit against Dr. Lawson Moyer. She alleges that after he began caring for Schlesinger, Moyer rewrote her will. The new will allegedly gives Spears only $25,000. It also leaves $100,000 to Moyer with the remainder to be distributed to charities.

Caution Houston: Estate Planning Gotchas During a Divorce

Published on: August 11, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

A scenario commonly encountered within estate planning is when an individual dies while negotiating a separation agreement with their spouse, or when in the midst of divorce proceedings. While a divorce order will void specific bequests to a spouse, merely initiating negotiations or proceedings will not.

Married couples typically plan to leave significant portions of their estates to the surviving spouse. If a divorce were to occur, a change would need to be made to the estate plan to remove the ex-spouse. Most of the time, if you do not change your estate plan after getting a divorce, a judge will ordinarily disregard any specific bequests you made to your ex-spouse. The law assumes you would not want your estate to go to a former spouse.

However, as the Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog points out in a recent article titled “When Death Occurs Mid-Divorce,” the same thing is not true if you are in the divorce process but your divorce has not yet been finalized. This is a common problem when a divorce has been filed and one of the parties passes away during the process. When that happens, it can cause issues with a family home that is owned by both parties. If the home is owned as joint tenants, then the property will automatically pass to the survivor. If the divorcing couple owns the home as tenants in common, however, the deceased party’s share of the home will go to his or her heirs.

If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It in Houston…Unless the Trustee Says No

Published on: August 8, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Your plan is only as good as the people who implement it. When they aren’t competent, don’t pay attention to details, or decide to pursue their own interests, disaster can ensue. The latest case involves the Walt Disney estate.

"If you can dream it, you can do it." Walt Disney shared great inspiration with the world, and no doubt with his own family. But ever since Disney passed away in 1966, problems with his estate plan have continued to mount.

At issue is a trust he left for his grandchildren. The trust itself is fairly standard in that trust principal was to be distributed to the grandchildren in stages. For one grandchild, everything went according to plan. However, for the other two, problems have arisen.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Estate Goes to Girlfriend, Not Kids

Published on: August 1, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Philip Seymour Hoffman did everything in his power to make sure his children were "normal."

When the Capote actor died of a heroin overdose in February, he left the bulk of his estate to his partner, Mimi O'Donnell, and added the unusual request that their offspring be raised outside of Los Angeles. According to his accountant, David Friedman, these decisions were made to keep his children from becoming trust fund kids.

After the tragic passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman in February, he left behind three minor children and a long-time girlfriend. Since he wasn't married, you may assume he would have left his estate to his kids. We now know from court papers that Hoffman did not leave his estate to his children. Instead, the majority of his estate was left to the girlfriend. A trust was created for one of his children, but money from the trust can only be used to pay for education, support, health, and maintenance.

The World Knows All About Lou Reed’s Estate – Do You Want the Same Exposure in Houston?

Published on: July 29, 2014 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

If Lou Reed had used a revocable living trust, and transferred his assets into the trust during his life, then all of this information would have been kept private. No one would know how much he had, whom he left it to, or how much his executors were charging.

When a celebrity passes away, reporters scramble to find out how much money the celebrity had and how it will be distributed. But how exactly are they getting the information? Is it in-depth investigative journalism … or a common estate planning mistake?

Recently, the New York Post has had story after story about the specific details of Lou Reed's estate plan. We know how much he had when he passed away. We know how much money his intellectual property interests have earned for his estate since he passed away. We also know how much money each of Reed's heirs will receive. How do we know so much?

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.

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.