May is Senior Citizen’s Month, a time to reflect and appreciate all the things the seniors in our lives have done for us. Whether they are our parents, grandparents, or elderly friends, our seniors have given us so much over the years. While no one can predict how many more years we’ll have with our elderly loved ones, there is an easy way to capture their stories, wisdom, and love for future generations. Read more …
Read MoreWhen it comes to estate planning and wills, you have a variety of options for legal documents. The most common of these options is a “last will and testament,” which is also known simply as a “will.” But you may have also heard people talk about a “living will” and wonder what that is and whether you need a living will in addition to a regular last will and testament.
Both terms describe important legal documents used in estate planning, but their purpose and function differ significantly. In this article, we will review some of the most critical things you need to know about living wills and why having a living will is essential to every adult’s estate plan. And it may be that a living will is even more important than a last will and testament.
Read MoreThe holidays are here, and there's no better time than now to talk about your estate planning.
Estate planning is a topic that you probably don't think about very often, but it's one of the most important—and potentially confusing—decisions you'll make in your lifetime. After what happened for the past two years, talking about these issues is particularly urgent this time around.
That said, asking your dad about his end-of-life wishes while he’s watching football isn’t the best way to broach the subject. In order to make the talk as productive as possible, consider the following four tips.
Read MoreWhether it’s called “The Great Wealth Transfer,” “The Silver Tsunami,” or some other catchy-sounding name, it’s a fact that a tremendous amount of wealth will pass from Baby Boomers to younger generations in the next few decades. In fact, it’s said to be the largest transfer of intergenerational wealth in history.
Because no one knows how long aging Boomers will live or how much money they’ll spend before they pass on, it’s impossible to accurately predict how much wealth will be transferred. However, studies suggest it’s somewhere between $30 and $90 trillion. Yes, that’s “trillion” with a “t.”
Read MoreAs you’ve surely heard by now, we’re in the midst of great economic shifts. The collapse of the crypto market, the stock market's roller-coaster, rising interest rates, dropping home values, and inflation through the roof are enough to make you sick. And it can make you sick unless you take the actions we are sharing here.
During every economic shift, whether it’s the Great Depression, the last Great Recession, or even during the pandemic, some people get rich while others lose everything. Whether your family got rich, lost it all, or just hung on by their toes, you can learn from what happened and create the exact future reality you want for yourself and the people you love.
Read MoreThis year, Estate Planning Awareness Week runs from October 17th to 23rd, and one of our primary goals is to educate you on the vital importance of not only preparing an estate plan but also keeping your plan up-to-date. While you almost surely understand the importance of creating an estate plan, you may not know that keeping your plan current is every bit as important as creating a plan, to begin with.
Read MoreActress Anne Heche died this August following a tragic car accident, leaving behind two young sons: Homer Heche Laffoon, age 20, and Atlas Heche Tupper, age 13.
Last week, in part one, we covered the way uncertainty around Heche’s estate plan is creating conflict among her loved ones and resulting in her estate going through the lengthy, expensive, and public court process called probate. In part two, we’ll discuss two additional issues related to Heche’s death and the results of her failure to work with a lawyer on her planning.
Read MoreYou might think that only the super wealthy need to worry about asset protection planning. But the truth is that you may be at even greater risk if you don't have millions. For instance, a $50,000 judgment against you might not be that big of a deal if you are a multi-millionaire. But for a family with a modest income, savings, and home, it could be devastating.
Furthermore, asset protection planning isn’t something you can put off until something happens. Once you are under threat of a lawsuit, it’s likely too late to protect your assets. Like all types of planning, to be effective, you must have your asset protection strategies in place well before something happens. And your asset protection plan isn’t a one-and-done deal: it must be regularly updated to accommodate changes to your assets, family dynamics, and the law.
Read MoreWhether it’s to qualify for Medicaid, avoid probate, or reduce your tax burden, transferring ownership of your home to your adult child during your lifetime may seem like a smart move. But in nearly all cases, it’s actually a huge mistake, which can lead to dire consequences for everyone involved.
With this in mind, before you sign over the title to your family’s beloved homestead, consider the following potential risks.
Read MoreIf you are a mom or dad with children under the age of 18 at home, your number-one estate planning priority should be selecting and legally documenting both long and short-term guardians for your kids. Guardians are the people legally named to care for your children in the event something happens to you.
And if you’ve named guardians for your children in your will—even with the help of another lawyer—your kids could still be at risk of being taken into the care of strangers!
One of the most disturbing aspects of this situation is that you probably have no idea just how vulnerable your kids are since this is a blind spot inherent to the estate plan of countless parents around the world. Even many lawyers aren’t fully aware of this issue—and that’s because most lawyers simply don’t understand what’s necessary for planning and ensuring the well-being and care of minor children.
Read MoreUnless you’ve created an estate plan that works to keep your family out of court when you die (or become incapacitated) many of your assets must go through probate before those assets can be distributed to your heirs. Like most court proceedings, probate can be time-consuming, costly, and open to the public, and because of this, avoiding probate—and keeping your family out of court—is often a central goal of estate planning.
To spare your loved one’s the time, cost, and stress inherent to probate, last week in part one of this series, we explained how the probate process works and what it would entail for your loved ones. Here in part two, we’ll discuss the major drawbacks of probate for your family, and outline the different ways you can help them avoid probate with wise planning.
Read MoreWhether you’ve met with an estate planning lawyer before or it’s your first time, it’s important to understand how working with the 20West Legal team is different from meeting with a traditional lawyer.
Here we will explain what’s involved with our process, in hopes that it will inspire you to meet with us and get clear on what your family needs you to have in place, so you don’t leave behind a mess if you become incapacitated or when you die. We promise to help you make the wisest, most affordable, most effective, time-saving plan for yourself and the people you love.
Read MoreIf you are running a business, it’s easy to give estate planning less priority than your other business matters. After all, if you’re facing challenges meeting next month’s payroll or your goals for growth over the coming quarter, concerns over your potential incapacity or death can seem far less urgent.
But the reality is considering what would happen to your business in the event of your incapacity or when you die is one of your most pressing responsibilities as a business owner. Although estate planning and business planning may seem like two separate tasks, they’re actually inexorably linked. And given that your business is likely your family’s most valuable asset, estate planning is crucial not only for your company’s continued success but also for your loved one’s future well-being.
Read MoreThis kind of thinking is exactly what DIY and online estate planning services would like you to believe, but it’s far from true. In fact, relying on DIY or online estate planning documents can be one of the costliest mistakes you can make for your loved ones. Keep in mind, just because you created “legal” estate planning documents that doesn’t mean they will actually work when you—or most importantly, the people you love—need them.
Without a thorough understanding of your family dynamics, the nature of your assets, and how the legal process works upon your death or incapacity, you are likely to make serious mistakes when creating a DIY estate plan. Even worse, these mistakes won’t be discovered until it’s too late—and the loved ones you were trying to protect will be the very ones forced to clean up your mess or get stuck in a costly and traumatic court process that can drag out for months or even years.
Last week, in part one of this series, we covered the first two ways DIY estate plans can fail, and here, we’ll cover the remaining three.
Read MoreIf you are like many homeowners, your home is likely your family’s most valuable and treasured asset. In light of this, you want to plan wisely to ensure your home will pass to your heirs in the most efficient and safe manner possible when you die or in the event you become incapacitated by illness or injury.
Indeed, proper estate planning is as much a part of responsible homeownership as having homeowners insurance or keeping your home’s roof well maintained. When it comes to including your home in your estate plan, you have a variety of different planning vehicles to choose from, but for a variety of different reasons, putting your home in a trust is often the smartest choice.
In part one, we explained how revocable living trusts and irrevocable trusts work, and we discussed the process of transferring the legal title of your home into a trust to ensure it’s properly funded. Here in part two, we will outline the key advantages of using a trust to pass your home to your loved ones compared to other estate planning strategies.
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