The third week of October has been designated by the United States House of Representatives as National Estate Planning Awareness Week since 2008. The intention behind this is to help the public learn more about estate planning and the impact it has on overall financial wellness. Estate planning is often…
Although we may think of phishing emails, robocalls, or other types of scams when we think about financial exploitation, it is far more common for this type of exploitation to be done by relatives, caregivers, neighbors, or friends someone believed they could trust. Financial exploitation is more common than most…
A lot of people are part of a blended family. It’s important for those in this type of family to make sure that stepchildren are incorporated into their estate planning process. Many stepparents love and care for their stepchildren as their own children, and they may not be aware that…
As I began writing about in last week’s post, there are a number of important factors to consider when deciding who to name as trustees, powers of attorney, health care surrogates, and executors while working on your estate plan. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind: 4.…
When implementing estate planning documents, one of the biggest challenges people often run into is the choice of who to name as their trustees, powers of attorney, health care surrogates, and executors. Here are some tips for deciding who to appoint: 1. Give preference to those who have the most…
People with revocable living trusts often name a family member (spouse, oldest child, etc.) as their successor trustee. The successor trustee is who takes over the administrative duties for the trust in the event you become incapacitated or die. However, naming only one successor is probably not enough. It is…
Although parents typically want to leave equal shares of their estate for their children, there are cases where equal isn’t fair. It’s important to carefully prepare if you want to provide more or less for one child in your estate plan. There may be a number of reasons a parent…
It can be enough of a challenge to do estate planning for yourself, but it might be even more complicated when you have a spouse. You and your spouse may have been able to reach agreements on major life decisions such as raising children and where to live, but that…
It’s a huge responsibility to act as an agent under a power of attorney, and it isn’t something everyone is able or willing to do. If someone names you as an agent in their power of attorney document, you can resign or refuse the position. The main types of power…
As you are preparing to bring your student to college, there’s some estate planning you will want to include as part of this preparation. Your child becomes a legal adult once they turn 18, and in most circumstances, you are no longer authorized to obtain information regarding their medical care…