Keep the Government and Lawsuit Happy Opportunists Away From Your Children’s Inheritance

If you have a current estate plan, I'll bet you plan to leave your assets to your children outright and unprotected by age 35 or maybe a little later. Go take a look at your estate plan, and see what it does right now. And, if you don’t have an estate plan and you have kids or other people you care about, contact us today and let’s get that handled for you.

If you do have a plan and it distributes your assets outright to your kids -- even in stages, over time, some at 25, then half of what’s left at 30, and balance at 35 (or something along those lines), you’ve overlooked d an incredibly valuable gift you can give your children (and the rest of your descendants for generations); a gift that only you can give them. And a gift that, once you’ve died and left them their inheritance outright, is lost and cannot be reclaimed.

5 Common Estate Planning Concerns For Your Second (Or More) Marriage

With divorce occurring in roughly 50% of all marriages in the U.S. and life expectancy increasing every day, second—and even third—marriages are becoming quite common. And when people get remarried in mid-life and beyond, they often bring children from prior marriages into the mix. Such unions are often referred to as a “blended” family or a “Brady Bunch” family.

But blended families can also take other forms. Whether you have stepchildren, adopted children, children from a previous relationship, or you have someone you consider “kin,” even though that individual might not be classified as your legal relative in the eyes of the law, these are also examples of a blended family.

Whenever you merge two families into one, you are naturally going to encounter some challenges and conflict. To this end, blended families present a number of particularly challenging legal and financial issues from an estate planning perspective. Indeed, though all families should have an estate plan, planning is absolutely essential for those with blended families.

Protect Your Children’s Inheritance With A Lifetime Asset Protection Trust

As a parent, you’re likely hoping to leave your children an inheritance. In fact, doing so maybe one of the primary factors motivating your life’s work. But without taking the proper precautions, the wealth you pass on is at serious risk of being accidentally lost or squandered due to common life events, such as divorce, serious debt, devastating illness, and unfortunate accidents.

In some cases, a sudden inheritance windfall can even wind up doing your kids more harm than good.

Creating a will or a revocable living trust offers some protection for your kid’s inheritance, but in most cases, you’ll be guided to distribute assets through your will or trust to your children at specific ages and stages, such as one-third at age 25, half the balance at 30, and the rest at 35.

Legendary Rapper DMX Dies With No Will, Millions in Debt, and 15 Children—Part 1

Legendary hip hop artist DMX—born Earl Simmons—passed away on April 9 at age 50 after suffering a massive heart attack a week earlier at his home in White Plains, New York. The heart attack was reportedly triggered by a cocaine overdose on April 2, which left the rapper hospitalized in a coma. After a week of lingering in a vegetative state, his family made the decision to remove him from life support.

Despite selling more than 74 million albums and enjoying a wildly successful career in both music and movies, DMX, who died without a will, left behind an estate that some estimates report being millions of dollars in debt. Even though DMX likely died deeply in debt, just weeks after his passing, multiple members of his family, which includes 15 children from nine different women, petitioned the court seeking to become administrators of the late rap star's estate.

Almost Three Years After Her Death, Aretha Franklin’s Poor Estate Planning Continues To Haunt Her Family—Part 2

Nearly three years have passed since Aretha Franklin, known as the “Queen of Soul,” died from pancreatic cancer at age 76. When she first passed away in August 2018, her family thought that Aretha died without any estate plan at all.

But since then, four different wills attributed to the late singer have been discovered. And ever since those documents came to light, her four adult sons—Clarence, Edward, Ted White Jr., and Kecalf—have been in court fighting one another over her assets, as well as who among them should be designated as the estate’s representative.