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.

A last will and testament is the most commonly thought-of document when it comes to an estate plan. But really it is only a very small part of an integrated plan that ensures your family stays out of court and out of conflict if and when something happens to you.

Do not think you can just write your own will and that will help your family.

Nearly three years have passed since Aretha Franklin, known as the “Queen of Soul,” died from pancreatic cancer at age 76. At the time, her total fortune was estimated to be worth up to $80 million. Yet due to poor estate planning, the late singer’s children have yet to see a dime of their inheritance, and what they ultimately do receive will be significantly depleted by back taxes. Moreover, it’s still not clear whether or not Aretha ever had a valid will.

Most lawyers get it wrong here, and I used to be one of them. I used to do exactly what I would absolutely cringe at doing now.

It's really amazing how much my clients have taught me – they've made me ponder every estate planning scenario imaginable, and I've had a chance to help them go on vacation without worrying, or sleep better at night, or go into childbirth or surgery with peace of mind.

Here, in the second part of this series, we’ll first look at the different ways a Lifetime Asset Protection Trust would have benefited Larry’s children. From there, we’ll discuss the complications that are likely to arise given that two of Larry’s children died before he had the chance to update his plan—and the planning lessons we can take away from this mistake.

Legendary TV and radio host, Larry King, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on January 23rd, 2021 at age 87. Larry was hospitalized in December due to COVID-19, but he’d recently been moved from the ICU to a regular hospital room after recovering from the virus. However, the famed broadcaster suffered from a number of other health conditions over the years, including multiple heart attacks, kidney failure, and diabetes, and he passed away from sepsis that was the result of an unrelated infection.

If you use Facebook to share, track, and report on important life events, it can provide an intimate snapshot of your life, and it can also serve as a key part of your legacy—and one you’ll likely want to protect following your death. With this in mind, as with any other digital asset you own, you should include your Facebook profile as part of your estate plan.

Within the past year, a combination of new legislation and the recent change of leadership in the White House and Congress stands to dramatically increase the income taxes your loved ones will have to pay on inherited retirement accounts as well as increasing the income taxes you owe on your taxable investments. However, purchasing life insurance may offer you the opportunity to minimize the effect of these developments.

If you own a business, you almost certainly have intellectual property. However, because your intellectual property is intangible, it can be invisible to you and those who aren’t familiar with the nature of intellectual property and its value, so it often gets overlooked, especially when it comes to estate planning. Yet, if you fail to properly document your intellectual property, your estate plan will likely not protect it—and this could cause your loved ones to miss out on what can be among your most valuable assets.

Although you likely won’t need to have an entirely new estate plan prepared for you, upon relocating to another state, you should definitely have your existing plan reviewed by an estate planning lawyer who is familiar with your new home state’s laws. Each state has its own laws governing estate planning, and those laws can differ significantly from one location to another.

Given this, you’ll want to make sure your planning documents all comply with the new state’s laws, and the terms of those documents still work as intended. Here, we’ll discuss how differing state laws can affect common planning documents and the steps you might want to take to ensure your documents are properly updated.

Long term care insurance should be reviewed for correct coverage. Contact our law office in Sudbury, Massachusetts located near Wayland and Framingham. We draft Revocable Living Trusts and Wills. We prepare Wills, Durable Power of Attorney, and Health Care Directives. We are the best law firm in Sudbury, MA!

Last week in part one of this series we discussed how Hsieh became an Internet pioneer, starting two wildly successful companies, LinkExchange and Zappos, the latter of which he sold to Amazon for $1.2 billion. It was as CEO of the online shoe brand Zappos where Hsieh developed his vision for life and business: delivering happiness.

Hsieh outlined this mission in the 2010 book, Delivering Happiness: A Path To Profits, Passion and Purpose, which became a New York Times number-one bestseller. Yet while the young entrepreneur was busy bringing joy to his customers, employees, and friends, Hsieh was privately coping with mental health issues and substance abuse. These struggles reportedly intensified in 2020, as the pandemic-related quarantines put an end to the non-stop parties and socializing Hsieh came to crave.

On November 27th, nine days after being pulled unconscious from a house fire in a beachfront home in New London, Connecticut, Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of the online shoe retailer Zappos, died due to complications of smoke inhalation.

Hsieh, who was single and had no children, was just 46. At the time of his death, Hsieh was worth an estimated $840 million, but in spite of his immense wealth, it seems he did not have a will, which is particularly puzzling given his altruistic nature.

Since you’ll be discussing topics like death, incapacity, and other frightening life events, hiring an estate planning lawyer may feel intimidating or morbid. But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way.

Instead, it can be the most empowering decision you ever make for yourself and your loved ones. The key to transforming the experience of hiring a lawyer from one that you dread into one that empowers you is to educate yourself first.

Last week we presented two of five questions to ask to ensure you don’t end up paying for legal services that you don’t need, expect, or want. Here are the remaining three questions.

Since you’ll be discussing topics like death, incapacity, and other frightening life events, hiring an estate planning lawyer may feel intimidating or morbid. But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way.

Instead, it can be the most empowering decision you ever make for yourself and your loved ones. The key to transforming the experience of hiring a lawyer from one that you dread into one that empowers you is to educate yourself first.

To this end, here are the first two of five questions to ask to ensure you don’t end up paying for legal services that you don’t need, expect, or want.

There are specific assets that are not subject to a Last Will and Testament, meaning these assets will not be distributed pursuant to the terms of your Will. Joint ownership and beneficiary designations, for example, fall out of the purview of your Will. These assets should be addressed separately.

If you’re like most people, you likely think estate planning is just one more task to check off of your life’s endless “to-do” list.

You may shop around and find a lawyer to create planning documents for you, or you might try creating your own DIY plan using online documents. Then, you’ll put those documents into a drawer, mentally check estate planning off your to-do list, and forget about them.

The problem is, estate planning is not a one-and-done type of deal.

In our recent article on Black Panther Star Chadwick Boseman’s death and lack of a will, we discussed a few potential explanations for this apparent blind spot in his estate plan, and how the young actor might have prevented the situation by creating a pour-over will to be used as a backup to any trusts he had put in place. Here in part two, we’ll focus on another critical component of Boseman’s estate plan—incapacity planning.

On October 15th, nearly two months after the death of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman, his wife, Taylor Simone Ledward, filed documents with the Los Angeles probate court seeking to be named administrator of his estate. Earlier this year, Boseman and Ledward were married, and the marriage gives Ledward the right to any assets held in Boseman’s name at his death.

Boseman died at age 43 on August 28th following a four-year battle with colon cancer, and based on the court documents, it seems the young actor died without a will.

No matter who you vote for on November 3rd, you may want to start considering the potential legal, financial, and tax impacts a change of leadership might have on your family’s planning. As you’ll learn here, there are a number of reasons why you may want to start strategizing now if you could be impacted, because if you wait until after the election, it could be too late.

While we don’t yet know the outcome of the election, Biden could win and the Democrats could take a majority in both houses of Congress. If that does happen, a Democratic sweep would have far-reaching consequences on a number of policy fronts. But in terms of financial, tax, and estate planning, it’s almost certain that we’ll see radical changes to the tax landscape that could seriously impact your planning priorities. And while it’s unlikely that a tax bill would be enacted right away, there’s always the possibility such legislation could be applied retroactively to Jan. 1, 2021.