Two of the most important considerations you face as a senior are how you want your medical care handled in the event you become incapacitated, and how you want medical care to be handled at the end of your life. Both of these situations can be addressed using advance medical directives, specifically a medical power of attorney and a living will.
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A will directs who will receive your property at your death. It offers no protection if you become incapacitated and are no longer able to make decisions about your financial and healthcare needs. A trust specifies how your property will be distributed before your death, at your death, or at a specified time after death.
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Whether you consider yourself wealthy or not, you need to think about how (and when) you’ll talk with your children about money, whether they’re little kids, tweens, teens, or already adults.
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Providing for your pet’s future care through estate planning assures that when you die or become incapacitated, your beloved friend won’t wind up in a shelter or worse. A will cannot guarantee the new caregiver will use the funds properly or even that they’ll care for your pet at all. A pet trust allows you to lay out detailed rules for exactly how the trust’s funds can be used.
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Ignoring—or even putting off estate planning can be a huge mistake, as these celebrity stories will highlight. These famous celebrities’ stories offer first-hand evidence of just how critical it is to engage in estate planning, even if it’s uncomfortable.
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Merging two families into one presents unique legal and financial challenges that can cause significant conflict and distress unless effective estate planning has been put into place early on. Here are a few of the most common issues that blended families should keep in mind when it comes to estate planning.
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President Trump signed the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill into law on December 22, 2017, and the law includes a number of historic changes to the federal tax code. However, the vast majority of the most dramatic changes are aimed at business taxation, not individual taxpayers. So, how will the new tax law effect your family?
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Since estate planning involves thinking about death, many people put it off until their senior years or simply ignore it all together until it becomes too late. This kind of unwillingness to face reality can create major hardship, expense, and mess for the loved ones and assets you leave behind. So how do you avoid making estate planning mistakes?
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Whether you’ve met with an estate planning attorney before or it’s your first time, it’s important to understand how working with an estate planning attorney is different than meeting with a traditional lawyer.
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