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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.

When we talk about intellectual property, we’re referring to creations of the mind, including inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, logos, brand names, and images, all of which are used in the course of a business.

 

Identifying, Valuing, and Protecting Your Intellectual Property

While you might think that identifying, protecting, and valuing your intellectual property is something that only applies to big companies, not small businesses, that’s definitely not the case. In fact, if you own a small business, your intellectual property can be of even greater value to your loved ones once you’re no longer around and able to financially provide for them.

For all of these reasons, it’s imperative that you take the proper steps to not only protect these intangible assets during your lifetime, but that you also use estate planning to ensure that your intellectual property is properly handled following your death, so your loved ones can continue to get the most value out of these most valuable assets.

 

Documentation and Registration
The first step to take in protecting your intellectual property is to formally document it in your business inventory of assets. When you create your business asset inventory, you are creating a record of its assets, including intangible assets like intellectual property.

The next step is to legally register trademarks, copyrights and patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and ensure you have the proper legal agreements and contracts in place to ensure there’s no question about who owns these works. To this end, if you have not protected your intellectual property with copyrights, trademarks, patents, royalty and licensing agreements, non-competes for employees, and work-for-hire provisions in your existing agreements with independent contractors and vendors, now is the time to do so.

Don’t wait until your intellectual property gets stolen or you receive a cease-and-desist letter to put these protections in place. Registering a trademark or copyright might cost you time and money, but failing to register your brand can ultimately cost you far more than that in legal fees or the lost value of your assets, especially if you end up in court, trying to fight for what you thought you owned.

 

Address Your Intellectual Property in Your Estate Plan

After you have documented your intellectual property, review the operating agreement or bylaws of your business entity. And if you don’t have an operating agreement or bylaws, now is the time to put these essential legal agreements in place. Read through your governing documents to see what they say about what happens to your business and its intellectual property upon your death or incapacity.

If you think this all sounds overly complicated, imagine how much more difficult it will be for your loved ones to deal with it should something happen to you. In fact, it could prove impossible for your loved ones to handle these matters in your absence, which is why it’s so important for you and your legal team to take care of these issues now. That way, your family isn’t stuck trying to clean up a mess after your death.

Homeschooling Grandchildren (It Can Be Done) – Home Educator

While the quarantines, shutdowns, and social distancing measures related to the pandemic have been difficult for everyone, the elderly have been particularly hard hit. Since seniors face the most health risks from COVID-19, most of them have been careful to avoid close contact with their family members, and this has left many grandparents unable to visit with their grandchildren for close to a year now.

This loss of in-person connection for such an extended period of time can cause people to feel isolated and lonely, which can eventually lead to mental health issues like depression. At the same time, children who are unable to spend time with their grandparents may experience confusion and anxiety over their lost relationship.

 

With this in mind, here are a few tips for helping seniors maintain a connection with their grandchildren during the pandemic using web-based technology like FaceTime, email, and instant messaging (IM). And though video chats, texts, and IMs will never replace in-person visits, they offer one of the most effective ways of keeping those relationships—and everyone’s spirits—as strong as possible during these dark times.

 

  1. Reading Stories

One way for grandparents to feel more connected with their grandkids is to read stories over video chat or smartphone. Choose a favorite book at the grandchild’s reading level, and take turns reading pages. This can give the grandchild the added benefits of improving reading skills, building their vocabulary, and helping them develop their speaking abilities. By picking a regular time to call and read together each week, it can also give both of them something to look forward to.

 

  1. Playing Games

Even though in-person visits are too risky right now, family game night can still happen. Grandparents and grandkids have many options for online gaming, including even classic board games, such as Scrabble, Monopoly, and Clue. Like their traditional counterparts, online games also help children develop math and vocabulary skills while they are having fun.

 

  1. Emailing, Texting, and Instant Messaging

Texts, emails, and IMs sent to one another on a regular basis can help grandparents stay connected and up-to-date with the latest developments in their grandkids’ lives. To catch up with one another, seniors can talk about what is happening in their lives and ask the grandkids to discuss the latest events in their own lives. When grandchildren use texts and emails, it also helps them practice writing out their thoughts and work on their spelling and grammar.

 

  1. Mailing Letters or Postcards

These days, letter writing almost seems like lost art. But sending personal letters and postcards is a great way for grandparents and grandchildren to connect with one another. Handwritten letters and postcards can also be prized keepsakes that will help grandchildren remember their grandparents long after they are gone. When possible, children should be encouraged to hand-write letters and postcards instead of typing and printing them out. They can also decorate their letters or postcards with drawings and art.

 

  1. Group Video Chats and Phone Calls

Tech-savvy grandparents can use video chat apps like Skype, FaceTime, and Google Duo to visit with the grandkids in a group setting, where everyone can see and interact with one another. Even extremely young children like toddlers can participate in video chats, which can help them bond with their senior loved ones, even across vast distances. And if video chats aren’t something a senior feels comfortable with, a similar experience can be achieved simply by using a phone. Even short, 15 to 20-minute calls made on a regular basis can help grandparents and grandkids feel more connected and less isolated.

 

For the Love of Your Family

With coronavirus infections and deaths currently surging to record levels, it’s more critical than ever for parents and grandparents to ensure their estate planning is complete and up-to-date, including naming both short and long-term guardians for your minor children. If you’ve yet to name guardians for your kids, you should do so immediately.

 

In addition to ensuring your kids will be protected and provided for no matter what, the estate planning process itself can offer a unique opportunity to enhance your connection with your children and grandchildren. Communicating clearly about what you want to happen in the event of your death or incapacity (and talking with your kids about what they want) can foster a deep bond and sense of intimacy.

 

With people living longer than ever before, more and more seniors require long-term healthcare services in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. However, such care is extremely expensive, especially when it’s needed for extended periods of time.

Traditional healthcare insurance doesn’t cover such services, and though Medicare does pay for some long-term care, it’s quite limited, difficult to qualify for, and requires you to deplete nearly all of your assets before being eligible (though proactive estate planning can help shield your assets). To address this gap in coverage, long-term care insurance was created.

Intensive Care

First introduced as “nursing home insurance” in the 1980s, this type of insurance is designed to cover expenses associated with long-term skilled nursing services delivered in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or other senior care setting, though some of today’s policies cover care delivered in your own home as well.

Such intensive care is required when you are no longer able to care for yourself, often in the later stages of your life. These policies cover the cost of skilled nursing services that support you with basic self-care tasks, such as bathing, feeding, dressing, walking, and using the bathroom. These are known as activities of daily living (ADLs).

Before your coverage kicks in, most policies require that you demonstrate you have lost the ability to engage in at least two or three ADLs. Most policies also have a deductible, or elimination period, which is a set number of days that must elapse between the time you become disabled (eligible for benefits) and the time your coverage kicks in.

Many policies offer a 90-day elimination period, but others can be longer, shorter, or even have no elimination period at all. Of course, the shorter the elimination period, the more expensive the premium.

Additionally, long-term care policies typically come with a predetermined benefit period, which is the number of years of care it will pay for. A benefit period of three to five years, for example, is a quite common duration for such policies. Most policies also come with a cap on the dollar amount of coverage that will be paid for care on a daily basis, known as a daily benefit amount.

Getting Covered

Obviously, the younger and healthier you are when you buy the policy, the cheaper the premiums will be, so the sooner you invest in coverage, the better. In fact, most policies exclude certain pre-existing conditions, so if you wait until you become ill, it can be impossible to find coverage.

Increasing Premiums, Decreasing Benefits
With the elderly population booming, there has been a surge in demand for long-term care services, which has led to a marked increase in the cost of such policies. At the same time, many insurers have been cutting back on the benefits their policies offer.

If you are looking to purchase long-term care insurance, you should speak with multiple insurance providers and compare their benefits, care options, and premiums. Different companies may offer the same coverage and benefits, but they can vary dramatically in price. Always ask about the insurance company’s history of rate increases, including the amount of the most recent increase.

Choose Wisely

For the best chances of success when shopping for a policy, get help from a fee-only planner, who is not compensated based on your choice of coverage. When meeting with an insurance provider, you must get answers to following three questions about your policy:

  1. How long is the elimination period before the policy begins paying benefits?
  2. What capacities, or ADLs, must you lose before coverage kicks in?
  3. How many years of care are covered?

Buying long-term care insurance should be a family affair, because you are going to need your family members to advocate for you and file a claim for the policy when you need to use it. Given this, make sure your family knows what kind of policy you have, who your agent is, and how to make a claim.

What’s more, you should pre-authorize the right person to speak to the insurance company on your behalf, and not just rely on a power of attorney. That said, you should definitely have a well-drafted, updated, and regularly reviewed power of attorney on file as well.

Keep Your Policy Updated

Once you are in your 40s, your long-term care policy should be reviewed annually to evaluate new insurance products on the market and update your policy based on your changing needs. And whatever you do, once you have a policy in place, make sure you don’t miss a premium payment, because if you stop paying, even for a short period of time, you’ll lose all of the money you invested and will have no access to the benefits when you need them.

Californians Approve Prop. 19; Ending Major Property Tax Exemption –  Linkenheimer LLP CPAs & Advisors

Proposition 19 changes the way real estate may be passed down from parents to children in California. Here are 6 key things you should know about this new law:

  1. Prop 19 eliminates the ability for children to receive property from their parents without a property tax reassessment unless (adult) children use the property as their own primary residence andthe property has gained less than one million in value over the original assessed value.
  2. Previously, a parent could transfer their primary residence and up to one million of assessed value of other real estate (residential and commercial) to their children without reassessment. Please note that Prop 19 does notimpact capital gains taxes or eliminate the step up in basis for inherited properties – it only affects property tax reassessments.
  3. Prop 19 goes into effect on February 16, 2021 and will impact properties transferred after that date. Because of holidays, however, the transfers must be recorded by February 11, 2021 to meet the deadline.
  4. There is special Prop 19 planning available to avoid the consequences of Prop 19. This Special Prop 19 planning consists of transferring the property to an irrevocable trust before the deadline to preserve the lower property tax basis.
  5. This special Prop 19 planning is best suited for those (a) who own a property with a high current market value and a low property tax assessed value, and (b) who plan to gift that property to their children upon death, and (c) whose children intend to keep the property for a rental, vacation home, or commercial building.
  6. This special Prop 19 planning is not for everyone. There are many drawbacks and unknowns (the legislature has yet to write the details so there is much yet still to be determined) with this planning. For example, it would require you to give up all rights and use of your primary residence from now on, meaning your children could potentially kick you out of the home. For commercial properties, you would have to give up all rights to the rental income and principal now, meaning your children would receive it from this point forward. Also, please be aware, properties with a mortgage generally will not qualify for this special Prop 19 planning because lenders often legally prohibit these types of property transfers. Finally, if the transfer is allowed, there is added expense in creating the irrevocable trust now and administering it into the future.

If you would like to discuss whether Prop 19 planning is appropriate for you, please call CaliLaw at 626.355.4000 to schedule a phone call with a member of our team.

5 Questions To Ask Before Hiring An Estate Planning Lawyer—Part 1 | Cava & Faulkner

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 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. This is the person who is going to be there for your family when you can’t be, so you want to really understand who the lawyer is as a human, not just an attorney. Of course, you’ll also want to find out the kind of services the lawyer offers and how they run their business.

To gather this information and get a better feel for who the individual is at the human level, we suggest you ask the prospective lawyer five key questions. Last week in part one https://www.calilaw.com/5-questions-to-ask-before-hiring-an-estate-planning-lawyer-part-1/, we listed the first two of these questions, and here, we cover the final three.

  1. How will you proactively communicate with me on an ongoing basis?

The sad truth is most lawyers do a terrible job of staying in regular communication with their clients. Unfortunately, most lawyers don’t have their business systems set up for ongoing, proactive communication, and they don’t have the time to really get to know you or your family.

If you work with a lawyer who doesn’t have systems in place to keep your plan updated, ensure your assets are owned in the right way (throughout your life), and communicate with you regularly, your estate plan may be worth little more than one you could create for yourself online—and it’s likely to fail when your family needs it most.

Think of it this way: Yes, your estate plan is a set of documents. But more importantly, it’s who and what your family will turn to when something happens to you. You want to work with a lawyer who has systems in place to keep your documents up to date and to ensure your assets are owned in the right way throughout your lifetime. Ideally, the lawyer should get to know you and your family over time, so when something happens, your lawyer can be there for the people you love, and there will already be an underlying relationship and trust.

  1. Can I call about any legal problem I have, or just about matters within your specialty?

Given the complexity of today’s legal world, lawyers must have specialized training in one or more specific practice areas, such as divorce, bankruptcy, wills and trusts, personal injury, business, criminal matters, or employment law. You definitely do NOT want to work with a lawyer who professes to be an expert in whatever random legal issue walks through the door.

That said, you do want your personal lawyer to have broad enough expertise that you can consult with him or her about all sorts of different legal and financial issues that may come up in your life—and trust he or she will be able to offer you sound guidance. Moreover, while your lawyer may not be able to advise you on all legal matters, he or she should at least be able to refer to you to another trusted professional who can help you.

Trust me, you wouldn’t want the lawyer who designed your estate plan to also handle your personal injury claim, settle a dispute with your employee, and advise you on your divorce. But you do want him or her to be there to hear your story, refer you to a highly qualified lawyer who specializes in that area, and overall, serve as your go-to legal consultant.

  1. What happens if you die or retire?

This is a critically important—and often overlooked—question to ask not only your lawyer, but any service professional before beginning a relationship. Sure, it may be uncomfortable to ask, but a truly excellent, client-centered professional will have a plan in place to ensure their clients are taken care of no matter what happens to the individual lawyer managing your plan.

Look for a lawyer who has their own detailed plan in place that will ensure that someone warm and caring will take over your planning without any interruption of service. If your lawyer prepared a will, trust, and other estate planning documents for you, or if you are in the middle of a divorce or lawsuit, you want to make certain your lawyer has such a contingency plan in place, so you won’t be forced to start over from scratch should your lawyer die, retire, or become otherwise unavailable.

Don't Think of Remarrying Until You Read This - MM #108 - Marriage Missions International

Today, we’re seeing more and more people getting divorced in middle age and beyond. In fact, roughly one in four divorces involve those over 50, and divorce rates for this demographic have doubled in the past 30 years, according to the study Gray Divorce Revolution. For those over age 65, divorce rates have tripled.

With divorce coming so late in life, the financial fallout can be quite devastating. Indeed, Bloomberg.com found that the standard of living for women who divorce after age 50 drops by some 45%, while it falls roughly 21% for men. Given the significant decrease in income and the fact people are living longer than ever, it’s no surprise that many of these folks also choose to get remarried.

And those who do get remarried frequently bring one or more children from previous marriages into the new union, which gives rise to an increasing number of blended families. Regardless of age or marital status, all adults over age 18 should have some basic estate planning in place, but for those with blended families, estate planning is particularly vital.

Here, we’ll use three different hypothetical scenarios to discuss how a failure to update your estate plan after a midlife remarriage has the potential to accidently disinherit your closest family members, as well as deplete your assets down to virtually nothing. From there, we’ll look at how these negative outcomes can be easily avoided using a variety of different planning solutions.

Scenario #1: Accidentally disinheriting your children from a previous marriage

John has two adult children, David and Alexis, from a prior marriage. He marries Moira, who has one adult child, Patrick. The blended family gets along well, and because he trusts Moira will take care of his children in the event of his death, John’s estate plan leaves everything to Moira.

After just two years being married, John dies suddenly of a heart attack, and his nearly $1.4 million in assets go to Moira. Moira is extremely distraught following John’s death, and although she wants to update her plan to include David and Alexis, she never gets around to it, and dies just a year after John. Upon her death, all of the assets she brought into the marriage, along with all of John’s assets, pass to Moira’s son Patrick, while David and Alexis receive nothing.

There are several planning options John could’ve used to avoid this outcome. He could have created a revocable living trust that named an independent successor trustee to manage the distribution of his assets upon his death to ensure a more equitable division of his estate between his spouse and children. Or, he could have created two separate trusts, one for Moira and one for his children, in which John specified exactly what assets each individual received. He might have also taken advantage of tax-free gifts to his two children during his lifetime.

Scenario #2: Accidentally disinheriting your spouse

Mark was married to Gwen for 30 years, and they had three children together, all of whom are now adults. When their kids were young, Mark and Gwen both created wills, in which they named each other as their sole beneficiaries. When they were both in their 50s, and their kids had grown, Bob and Gwen divorced.

Several years later, at age 60, Bob married Veronica, a widow with no children of her own. Bob was very healthy, so he didn’t make updating his estate plan a priority. But within a year of his new marriage, Bob died in a car accident.

Bob’s estate plan, written several decades ago, leaves all of his assets to ex-wife Gwen, or, if she is not living at the time of his death, to his children. State law presumes that Gwen has predeceased Bob because they divorced after the will was enacted. Thus, all of Bob’s assets, including the house he and Veronica were living in, pass to his children. Veronica receives nothing, and is forced out of her home when Bob’s children sell it.

By failing to update his estate plan to reflect his current situation, Bob unintentionally disinherited Veronica and forced her into a precarious financial position just as she was entering retirement. If Bob had worked with an estate planning attorney to create a living trust, he could have arranged his assets so they would go to, and work for, exactly the people he wanted them to benefit.

Scenario #3: Allowing Assets to Become Depleted

Steve is a divorcee in his early 60s with two adult children when he marries Susan. Steve has an estate valued at around $850,000, and he has told his kids that after he passes away, he hopes they will use the money that’s left to fund college accounts for their own children. But he also wants to ensure Susan is cared for, so he establishes a living trust in which he leaves all his assets to Susan, and upon her death, the remainder to his two children.

Yet, soon after Steve dies, Susan suffers a debilitating stroke. She requires round-the-clock in-home care for several decades, which is paid for by Steve’s trust. When she does pass away, the trust has been almost totally depleted, and Steve’s children inherit virtually nothing.

An experienced estate planning attorney could have helped Steve avoid this unfortunate outcome. Steve could have stipulated in his living trust that a certain portion of his assets must go to his children upon his death, while the remainder passed to Susan.

Bringing families together
Along with other major life events like births, deaths, and divorce, entering into a second (or more) marriage requires you to review and rework your estate plan. And updating your plan is exponentially more important when there are children involved.

 

Writing a Will: Avoid these 8 mistakes while writing a will to ensure your assets are passed onto your heirs

 

A will is one of the most basic estate planning tools. While relying solely on a will is not a suitable option for most people, just about every estate plan includes this key document in one form or another.

A will is used to designate how you want your assets distributed to your surviving loved ones upon your death. If you die without a will, state law governs how your assets are distributed, which may or may not be in line with your wishes.

That said, not all assets can (or should) be included in your will. For this reason, it’s important to understand which assets you should put in your will and which assets you should include in other planning documents like trusts.

While you should always consult with an experienced planning professional when creating your will, here are a few of the different types of assets that should not be included in your will.

      1. Assets with a right of survivorship: A will only covers assets solely owned in your name. Therefore, property held in joint tenancy, tenancy by the entirety, and community property with the right of survivorship, bypass your will. These types of assets                 automatically pass to the surviving co-owner(s) when you die, so leaving your share to someone else in your will would have no effect. If you want someone other than your co-owner to receive your share of the asset upon your death, you will need to change             title to the asset as part of your estate planning process.

  1. Assets held in a trust: Assets held by a trust automatically pass to the named beneficiary upon your death or incapacity and cannot be passed through your will. This includes assets held by both revocable “living” trusts and irrevocable trusts.In contrast, assets included in a will must first pass through the court process known as probate before they can be transferred to the intended beneficiaries. To avoid the time, expense, and potential conflict associated with probate, trusts are typically a more effective way to pass assets to your loved ones compared to wills.

However, because it can be difficult to transfer all of your assets into a trust before your death, even if your plan includes a trust, you’ll still need to create what’s known as a “pour-over” will. With a pour-over will in place, all assets not held by the trust upon your death are transferred, or “poured,” into your trust through the probate process.

 

  1. Assets with a designated beneficiary: Several different types of assets allow you to name a beneficiary to inherit the asset upon your death. In these cases, when you die, the asset passes directly to the individual, organization, or institution you designated as beneficiary, without the need for any additional planning.The following are some of the most common assets with beneficiary designations, and therefore, such assets should not be included in your will:
  • Retirement accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s, and pensions
  • Life insurance or annuity proceeds
  • Payable-on-death bank accounts
  • Transfer-on-death property, such as bonds, stocks, vehicles, and real estate
  1. Certain types of digital assets: Given the unique nature of digital assets, you’ll need to make special plans for your digital assets outside of your will. Indeed, a will may not be the best option for passing certain digital assets to your heirs. And in some cases—including Kindle e-books and iTunes music files—it may not even be legally possible to transfer the asset via a will, because you never actually owned the asset in the first place—you merely owned a license to use it.What’s more, some types of social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, have special functions that allow you to grant certain individuals access and/or control of your account upon your death, so a will wouldn’t be of any use. Always check the terms of service for the company’s specific guidelines for managing your account upon your death.

Regardless of the type of digital asset involved, NEVER include the account numbers, logins, or passwords in your will, which becomes public record upon your death and can be easily read by others. Instead, keep this information in a separate, secure location, and provide your fiduciary with instructions about how to access it.

       5. Your pet and money for its care: Because animals are considered personal property under the law, you cannot name a pet as a beneficiary in your will. If you do, whatever money you leave it would go to your residuary beneficiary (the individual who                   gets everything not specifically left to your other named beneficiaries), who would have no obligation to care for your pet.

It’s also not a good idea to use your will to leave your pet and money for its care to a future caregiver. That’s because the person you name as beneficiary would have no legal obligation to use the funds to care for your pet. In fact, your pet’s new owner could legally keep all of the money and drop off your furry friend at the local shelter.

The best way to ensure your pet gets the love and attention it deserves following your death or incapacity is by creating a pet trust. A good estate planning attorney can help you set up, fund, and maintain such a trust, so your furry family member will be properly cared for when you’re gone.

  1. Money for the care of a person with special needs: There are a number of unique considerations that must be taken into account when planning for the care of an individual with special needs. In fact, you can easily disqualify someone with special needs for much-needed government benefits if you don’t use the proper planning strategies. To this end, a will is not a suitable way to pass on money for the care of a person with special needs.If you want to provide for the care of your child or another loved one with special needs, you must create a special needs trust. Given these are extremely technical, you should always work with an experienced planning lawyer to create a special needs trust.

Don’t take any chances
Although creating a will may seem fairly simple, it’s always best to consult with an experienced planning professional to ensure the document is properly created, executed, and maintained. And as we’ve seen here, there are also many scenarios in which a will won’t be the right planning option, nor would a will keep your family and assets out of court

 

Here's why you need an Estate Plan - My Press Plus

October 19th-25th, 2020 is National Estate Planning Awareness Week, so if you’ve been thinking about creating an estate plan, but still haven’t checked it off your to-do list, now is the perfect time to get it done.

When it comes to putting off or refusing to create an estate plan, your mind can concoct all sorts of rationalizations: “I won’t care because I’ll be dead,” “I’m too young,” “That won’t happen to me,” or “My family will know what to do.”

But these thoughts all come from a mix of pride, denial, and above all, a lack of real education about estate planning and the consequences to your family of not planning. Once you understand exactly how planning is designed to work and what it protects against, you’ll realize there is no acceptable excuse for not having a plan.

Indeed, the first step in creating a proper plan is to thoroughly understand the potential consequences of going without one. In the event of your death or incapacity, not having a plan could be incredibly traumatic and costly for your family, who will be forced to deal with the mess you’ll have created by neglecting to plan.

While each situation and family are unique, in this multi-part series I’m going to discuss some of the things most likely to happen to your loved ones if you fail to create a plan. This is the first:

Your family will have to go to court
If you don’t have a plan, or if you only have a will (yes, even with a will), you’re forcing your family to go through probate upon your death. Probate is the legal process for settling your estate, and even if you have a will, it’s notoriously slow, costly, and public. But with no plan at all, probate can be a true nightmare for your loved ones.

Depending on the complexity of your estate, probate can take years, or even decades, to complete. And like most court proceedings, probate can be expensive. In fact, once all of your debts, taxes, and court fees have been paid, there might be little left for your loved ones to inherit. And for whatever is left, your family will have to pay hefty attorney’s fees and court costs in order to claim them.

Yet, the most burdensome part of probate is the frustration and anxiety it can cause your loved ones. In addition to grieving your death, planning your funeral, and contacting everyone you’re close with, your family will be stuck dealing with a crowded court system that can be challenging to navigate even in the best of circumstances. Plus, the entire affair is open to the public, which can make things all the more arduous for those you leave behind, especially if the wrong people take an interest in your family’s affairs.

That said, the expense and drama of the court system can be almost totally avoided with proper planning. Using a trust, for example, we can ensure that your assets pass directly to your family upon your death, without the need for any court intervention. As long as you have planned properly, just about everything can happen in the privacy of our office and on your family’s time.

No more excuses
Given the potentially dire consequences probate can cause for your family, you can’t afford to put off creating your estate plan any longer. Next week we’ll look at how the lack of an estate plan will cost you control of who inherits your assets as well as when and how the inheritance is received.  

 

 

What Estate Planning Documents Do Your Young Adult Children Need?

While estate planning is probably one of the last things your teenage kids are thinking about, when they turn 18, it should be one of their (and your) number-one priorities. Here’s why: At 18, they become legal adults in the eyes of the law, so you no longer have the authority to make decisions regarding their healthcare, nor will you have access to their financial accounts if something happens to them.

With you no longer in charge, your young adult would be extremely vulnerable in the event they become incapacitated by COVID-19 or another malady and lose their ability to make decisions about their own medical care. Seeing that putting a plan in place could literally save their lives, if your kids are already 18 or about to hit that milestone, it’s crucial that you discuss and have them sign the following documents.

Medical Power of Attorney
A medical power of attorney is an advance directive that allows your child to grant you (or someone else) the legal authority to make healthcare decisions on their behalf in the event they become incapacitated and are unable to make decisions for themselves.

For example, a medical power of attorney would allow you to make decisions about your child’s medical treatment if he or she is in a car accident or is hospitalized with COVID-19.

Without a medical power of attorney in place, if your child has a serious illness or injury that requires hospitalization and you need access to their medical records to make decisions about their treatment, you’d have to petition the court to become their legal guardian. While a parent is typically the court’s first choice for guardian, the guardianship process can be both slow and expensive.

And due to HIPAA laws, once your child becomes 18, no one—even parents—is legally authorized to access his or her medical records without prior written permission. But a properly drafted medical power of attorney will include a signed HIPAA authorization, so you can immediately access their medical records to make informed decisions about their healthcare.

Living Will
While a medical power of attorney allows you to make healthcare decisions on your child’s behalf during their incapacity, a living will is an advance directive that provides specific guidance about how your child’s medical decisions should be made, particularly at the end of life.

For example, a living will allows your child to let you know if and when they want life support removed should they ever require it. In addition to documenting how your child wants their medical care managed, a living will can also include instructions about who should be able to visit them in the hospital and even what kind of food they should be fed.

Durable Financial Power of Attorney
Should your child become incapacitated, you may also need the ability to access and manage their finances, and this requires your child to grant you durable financial power of attorney.

Durable financial power of attorney gives you the authority to manage their financial and legal matters, such as paying their tuition, applying for student loans, managing their bank accounts, and collecting government benefits. Without this document, you will have to petition the court for such authority.

Peace of Mind
As parents, it is normal to experience anxiety as your child individuates and becomes an adult, and with the pandemic still raging, these fears have undoubtedly intensified. While you can’t totally prevent your child from an unforeseen illness or injury, you can at least rest assured that if your child ever does need your help, you’ll have the legal authority to provide it. Contact us if you have any questions.

 

Estate Planning Essentials for Same-Sex Couples - WillWritten Will Writing

 

A case on the Supreme Court’s docket for October could have a major impact on the parental rights of same-gender couples seeking to adopt or foster children. In February, the high court agreed to hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which deals with whether taxpayer-funded, faith-based foster care and adoption agencies have a Constitutional right to refuse child placement with LGBTQ families.

In March 2018, the City of Philadelphia learned that Catholic Social Services (CSS), an agency it contracted with to provide foster care services was refusing to license same-gender couples as foster parents. This was despite the fact the agency consented to abide by a city law prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

The city told CSS it would not renew their contract unless they abided by its nondiscrimination requirements, but CSS refused to comply, and the city cancelled its contract. CSS then sued the city, claiming it had a First Amendment right to refuse licensing same-gender couples, since those couples were in violation of their religious beliefs.

Both a federal judge and the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the city, noting the city’s decision was based on a sincere commitment to nondiscrimination, not a targeted attack on religion. From there, CSS took the case to the Supreme Court.

Rampant discrimination at the state level
LGTBQ adoptions are particularly contentious right now at the state level. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue of the parental rights of non-biological spouses in a same-gender marriage. Given this, many married same-gender couples looking to obtain full parental rights in every state turn to second-parent adoption, as the Supreme Court has previously ruled that the adoptive parental rights granted in one state must be respected in all states.

That said, 11 states currently permit state-licensed adoption agencies to refuse to grant an adoption, if doing so violates the agency’s religious beliefs. In other states, the law specifically forbids such discrimination, but as we’ve seen in the Fulton case, those laws are being challenged.

Estate planning offers another option

No matter how the Supreme Court rules, same-gender couples seeking parental rights have another option—estate planning. It may be surprising to hear, but it’s critically important for you to know that when used wisely, estate planning can provide a non-biological, same-gender parent with necessary and desired rights, even without formal adoption.

Starting with our Kids Protection Plan®, couples can name the non-biological parent as the child’s legal guardian, both for the short-term and the long-term, while confidentially excluding anyone the biological parent thinks may challenge their wishes. In this way, if the biological parent becomes incapacitated or dies, his or her wishes are clearly stated, so the court will keep the child in the non-biological parent’s care.

Beyond that, there are several other planning tools—living trusts, powers of attorney, and health care directives—we can use to grant the non-biological parent additional rights. We can also create “co-parenting agreements,” legally binding arrangements that stipulate exactly how the child will be raised, what responsibility each partner has toward the child, and what kind of rights would exist if the couple splits or gets divorced.

Secure parental rights—and your family’s future
Whether you are married, or in a domestic partnership, even with no children involved, it’s critically important you understand what will happen in the event one (or both) of you becomes incapacitated or when one (or both) of you dies. Proper planning can ensure your beloved is left with ease and grace, not a financial and legal nightmare that could have been avoided.

With proper guidance and support, you can ensure your partner or spouse will be protected and provided for in the event of your incapacity or when you die, while preventing your plan from being challenged in court by family members who might disagree with your relationship.