Monday, January 29, 2018

Including Powers of Attorney in Your Complete Estate Plan

Summary: Some people think that a simple will is enough to give them the basic estate plan that they need. While a will is better than no plan at all, a complete plan contains more and can do more to protect you. One element of every complete plan is the inclusion of powers of attorney. These documents can help give you the peace of mind that comes from knowing that, if you cannot make decisions for yourself, the person who will be speaking for you is the person you specifically wanted to do so.

While the rate of people developing dementia in this country has declined overall in the last few years, the news is not all good. The popular medical website webmd.com reported on a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that revealed that, although the overall rate has dipped, rates remain higher in rural areas of the country. Another conclusion of the study was that the incidence of cases of dementia is expected to double by 2050 due to the Baby Boomers.

Whether or not you are a Baby Boomer, dementia is a possibility for which everyone needs to prepare themselves. One aspect of this preparation is estate planning. There are two powers of attorney that will appear in most any complete estate plan. One is the healthcare power of attorney. This document allows you to name the person (your “agent” or “attorney in fact”) who will make your personal, medical and other healthcare decisions on your behalf in you cannot make them for yourself due to dementia or another form of incapacitation. (The law also allows you to structure your power of attorney such that the designated powers become effective immediately, as opposed to upon the event of your becoming incapacitated.)

As with any power of attorney, it is important to choose your agents carefully and thoughtfully. Your agent under your healthcare power of attorney may have considerable decision-making authority, including determining whether or not your will enter a nursing home. Additionally, in some states, one document covers both the traditional functions of a healthcare power of attorney and a living will, meaning that your agent could also have power over your end-of-life decisions. 

Another part of most every complete estate plan is the financial power of attorney, which allows the person you name in the power of attorney document to make decisions regarding your wealth and your assets. This power of attorney can grant very broad or limited powers, depending on the language in your document. You can give your agent the power simply to do maintenance activities like paying your bills, or wide-ranging authority like buying and selling assets in your name.

Another way to ensure that the management of your assets is handled seamlessly should you become incapacitated by dementia is the revocable living trust. A living trust allows you to name yourself as the initial trustee who manages all of the assets that you place within the trust. Then, should you become incapacitated, the trusteeship of your living trust will transition from you to the person you named in the trust document to serve as your successor trustee. A properly funded and maintained living trust may help you and your family avoid the need for a conservatorship, which can be an intrusive, expensive and stressful court action.    

This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com. 


This article written and published by:
8039 Cooper Creek Blvd
University Park, Florida 34201
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Sunday, January 28, 2018

Can the Government Get 100% of Your Assets When You Die?


Summary: We all probably have slightly different ideas about what we want to happen to our wealth when we die. Chances are fairly high, though, that few if any of us have, as out preferred plan, leaving everything to the government. However, that can and does happen. It happens when people who have no immediately known living relatives fail to create an estate plan. Having all of your assets revert to the government is just one of many unfavorable outcomes that can occur as a result of failing to plan. You can avoid these and take control of your legacy by taking the pro-active step of getting a complete estate plan without delay. 


Chances are, most everyone knows the word “cheat” and what it means. On the other hand, chances are that most everyone is not familiar with the word ”escheat.” Escheat, as it turns out, has nothing to do with cheat. The concept goes all the way back to the system of feudalism that existed in Medieval times. It meant that, in certain situations, a property might, upon the death of the owner, go to a lord or perhaps to the King.

Today, the word still exists in law, and refers to a circumstance where property reverts back to the treasury of the state in which it is located. How can the government end up getting your property when you die? The first thing that has to happen is that you have to have created no estate plan. If you have executed a valid will or living trust, then your assets will be distributed according to the instructions you put into your estate planning document(s). So, if you have a valid plan in place, there is virtually no way that your assets can escheat to the government. If you have no plan in place, though, that’s where things can get tricky. In that scenario, the law says that your assets are to be distributed according to the rules of intestate succession.

What is “intestate succession”? Intestate succession means the system for distributing estates when there were no estate planning documents. The rules of intestate succession were created under the theory that assets should transfer upon death to a deceased person’s closest living relatives.

For most people, they die leaving behind a spouse, children or both. Several others may also be survived by grandchildren, siblings, parents, aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews, cousins and so on. The intestate succession system starts with the closest relatives (spouse/children) and works outward from there in search of a relative to whom the assets can be distributed. Sometimes, it is exceedingly difficult to find these heirs. One of the jobs that a professional genealogist might do is finding these long-lost relatives in complicated cases.

Remember the old screwball comedy movies from the 1980s and beyond where the film’s main character gets a letter from out of the blue stating that he/she has inherited a large sum of wealth from some distant relative he/she barely remembers or didn’t know at all? That can actually happen. Take the case of a central Florida genealogist named Jerry, as reported by a news channel from Orlando. According to Jerry, an inability to find heirs to instate estates (and the assets in those estates reverting back to the government) “happens more often than people realize.”

Back in January, Jerry was working on the estate of Lydia, a Puerto Rican woman who, at the time of her death in 2012, was a legal resident of New York. When Lydia died, she had no surviving spouse or children. Jerry had identified her parents and a brother who served in the Korean War. At the time that Jerry discussed the case with news agencies, though, no living relatives had been found. If the search fails, then Lydia’s entire ONE MILLION DOLLARS will go to the State of New York. 

Reference:
Bechara, Stephanie. (2018-01-24). Kissimmee genealogist searches for heir to Puerto Rican fortune. Retrieved from: http://www.mynews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2018/1/24/kissimmee_genealogis.html

This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com. 

This article written and published by:
8039 Cooper Creek Blvd
University Park, Florida 34201
844.306.5272 (Phone)
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Friday, January 26, 2018

How Your Estate Plan Can Protect Those that Matter to You Most

Summary: Sometimes, the people who matter to you most may not always be the people with whom you share a biological or legal relationship. This is but one of many definite reasons why an estate plan is necessary. With your properly prepared and executed estate plan, you can make sure that you have control over your legacy and that, when you die, your wealth goes to the people you want to have it, and not to those who don’t.

If you’ve ever taken the time peruse the birthday card aisle at a greeting card store, you will notice a wide array of recipients of birthday well-wishes. There are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. You may also, if you look carefully, notice cards addressed to someone who is “like a daughter to me” or “like a son to me.” These cards acknowledge that real life can be somewhat complicated and come with gray areas.

To make sure than your estate planning goals do not get tripped up “gray areas,” set up a complete estate plan right away. With your estate plan in place, you make certain that those whom you love will be remembered, regardless of the legal relationship you and that person do or do not share. Generally, the only restrictions that the law imposes, when it comes to setting up the distribution provisions in your estate plan, relate to disinheriting your spouse (which is almost always forbidden.)

In other words, if for example, you have an estranged relationship with your biological children, but you have a step-daughter who has always been “like a daughter” to you, or a neighbor’s son who has always been “like a son” to you, you can construct your plan to reflect these relationships. The law allows you to give distributions, even large distributions, to non-relatives. You can even do so at the same time as you disinherit close biological relatives.

If you decide that your estate planning goals include disinheriting close biological relatives like children, then it is very important to make sure that the language in your plan documents is constructed carefully. Your plan should explicitly state that you are leaving that child or other relative nothing, or $1, or whatever sum you want. If you do not mention that person at all in your plan, then that could create an opportunity for that relative, after your death, to go to court and convince a judge that you accidentally left him/her out of your plan and that the judge should award him/her the same portion of your estate as he/she would have received if you had made no estate plan at all.   

Some states allow for something called “equitable adoption,” where someone who was not legally adopted will be considered to have been adopted by a non-parent. For example, this might include a step-parent who attempted to adopt a step-child, but was thwarted by forces outside the step-parent’s control (like, for example, an inability to locate a long-lost biological father.) If you are deemed to be equitably adopted, then you become the legal child of that person. Several states, however, do not recognize the concept of equitable adoption. Even those states that do recognize it only extend rights between the adopted child and adopted parent. (In other words, even if you were equitably adopted by your step-father, that generally doesn’t give you the right to inherit from his parents’ intestate estates.)

All of these legal rules discussed in the preceding paragraph highlight the fact that such things as equitable adoption can be changeable and uncertain, and it is always best to take control of your legacy and create an estate plan. That way, you know where your wealth will go and that the recipients are the people who mean the most to you.


This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com. 


This article written and published by:
8039 Cooper Creek Blvd
University Park, Florida 34201
844.306.5272 (Phone)
@assuranceplan
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Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Another Celebrity Death and Another Lesson We Should All Take Away With Regard to Estate Planning

Summary: Estate planning experts often use the well-publicized reports of the estate plans of celebrities (or celebrities’ lack of estate plans) to teach important lessons that we all can learn. Sometimes it’s the downsides of intestate succession, the perils of a failure to engage in plan updates or the problems presented by overlooking the vital step of trust funding. The recent sudden death of another music celebrity serves as a reminder of another kind: the essential importance of avoiding the trap of procrastination when it comes to estate planning, as none of us know how much time we have left, so none of us can afford to procrastinate taking control of our legacies and protecting our loved ones.  

There are many ways celebrity estate plans have gone wrong. Doing nothing and leaving one’s estate to the intestate succession system (as Prince did) can often create complication, confusion and a wealth of other unintended (and often undesired) consequences. Getting a plan but then failing to update it for decades can also cause significant problems and potentially thwart your true goals. When Whitney Houston died, her will was 19 years old and had never been updated at all since its execution. Michael Jackson engaged in comprehensive estate planning, but then failed to fund the trust that was created as part of his plan.

In other situations, though, news reports about celebrities can offer extremely important lessons about estate planning even when we know nothing about that star’s plans. Take, for instance, rock singer and songwriter Tom Petty. A Los Angeles Times music critic and reporter interviewed Petty in late September, shortly after his band ended their 2017 concert tour. Petty and the reporter discussed the many upcoming goals the singer had for himself, like producing an album for an up-and-coming band, working on his SiriusXM radio show and spending more time with his family.

Then, on October 2, Petty abruptly died of a heart attack. The Times writer’s article, originally intended to focus on the singer’s work, instead focused heavily on just how incredibly sudden and shockingly unexpected Petty’s death was. Petty was 66 and had gone through a battle with drugs in the past, but appeared to be in good health and nowhere near close to death.

So far, the media has not published any reports about the specifics of Petty’s estate plan, such as whether or not he had one or, if he did, what it looked like. In many ways, though, the estate planning lesson of Tom Petty has little to do with his legal documents themselves. Petty was a man with plans and goals. He had music projects lined up and also had personal plans, like making up for lost time with his 4-year-old granddaughter. Few if any people (certainly, no one in the media) saw him as anything other than man with many more productive years left to live.

Petty, in other words, was a lot like all of us. He was full of plans and dreams. He was full of family goals and professional objectives. He was full of life, until… one day, suddenly, he wasn’t. The education to take from the death of Tom Petty is that our remaining days, months and years are always going to be an unknown. As the saying goes, none of us is promised tomorrow.

So, when it comes to estate planning, don’t wait. Too many people procrastinate getting a proper estate plan in place, for any of a variety of reasons. Part of that procrastination is often fueled by the belief that estate planning isn’t urgent but rather is something that CAN be put off. “I’ll do it later… it can wait.” Don’t make that mistake. Your good health today is not a guarantee of longevity into the future. Take steps now to ensure that your loved ones are protected and your legacy is secure.   

This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com. 


This article written and published by:
8039 Cooper Creek Blvd
University Park, Florida 34201
844.306.5272 (Phone)
@assuranceplan
#legacyassuranceplan


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Friday, January 19, 2018

Insurance, for Your Estate Plan? Take Steps Now To Make Sure Your Legacy is Protected

Summary: Experts agree that most everyone needs an estate plan. Just getting an estate plan isn’t enough; it is important to get a complete and thorough estate plan. By taking the time to ensure that your plan is complete alternate, or backup, beneficiaries and fiduciaries, you can give your plan some “insurance” in the form of protection against something happening to the people you have named in your plan as primary beneficiaries and fiduciaries. This insurance can help you ensure that an unexpected event won’t get in the way of accomplishing your goals and objectives.   

If you look at Google’s dictionary, under the word “insurance,” you’ll find two definitions. The first is the one that probably that probably sprung immediately to your mind, which is a contractual agreement between an insurer and an insured in which the insurer promises to indemnify (which means to compensate for a loss or harm) the insured if any of certain set of covered events takes place.  

The second definition is more general. It says “a thing providing protection against a possible eventuality.” This is the sort of thing that you might think of as “insurance” in the metaphorical sense. When a character in your favorite TV action-intrigue drama talks about an “insurance policy,” chances are he or she is talking about this second definition – something that, if an unfortunate or dangerous event occurs, will provide the bearer with a degree of protection against some type of risk of harm.

It is in this latter sense that your estate plan can benefit from some “insurance.” Everyone who makes an estate plan probably goes over the basics. Who do I want to be my beneficiaries? Who do I want to be the successor trustee of my living trust… or the executor of my will… or the attorneys-in-fact under my powers of attorney? These are all important and essential pieces of the estate planning puzzle and vital decisions you need to make.

However, if you stop there, your plan is still exposed to risk. If you name only one person as your attorney-in-fact under your power of attorney and that person is dead or incapacitated by the time you need an attorney-in-fact to act on your behalf, then that means that you have no one available and authorized to speak for you. This could potentially lead to expensive, time-consuming and stressful court proceedings to get a guardian or conservator appointed for you. Similarly, if you name only one person to be the executor of your estate and that person is unavailable (due to death, incapacity, unwillingness or some other reason,) then your estate could be thrown into extra court hearings where a judge will decide who should oversee the distribution of your wealth. All of these sound like distinct risks of harm, don’t they?

This is where careful and detailed planning comes in. If you have completed a detailed estate plan, then that plan will name, not only your beneficiaries, your executor, your attorney(s)-in-fact and your living trust’s successor trustee, but also alternates to serve as back-ups in each of those categories. These back-ups are the “insurance” for your plan that protects your legacy and your planning goals. Perhaps you want your daughter to serve as your financial attorney-in-fact. However, if she was not available for any reason, you would also be satisfied with your son-in-law serving in that role. By going the extra mile and naming your daughter as your attorney-in-fact and your son-in-law as the alternate attorney-in-fact, then you’ve given yourself protection in the event that your primary designee is dead, incapacitated or unavailable. This “insurance” safeguards your goals and objectives from being thrown into a mess, into the courts or both, just due to something happening to the first person you named.     
This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com. 


This article written and published by:
8039 Cooper Creek Blvd
University Park, Florida 34201
844.306.5272 (Phone)
@assuranceplan
#legacyassuranceplan


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Tuesday, January 16, 2018

What Happens When You and Your Sole Beneficiary Die on the Same Day?

Summary: In estate planning, going the extra mile often has its advantages. You may not always be able to plan around a beneficiary’s death, even if you engage in regular plan updates, if your beneficiary dies around the same time that you do. You can still protect yourself by going that extra mile and making sure that, in addition to including clear instructions for the distribution of your wealth to your beneficiaries, that your plan also names alternate beneficiaries as well. This way, your goals will not be impaired by an unexpected and untimely death.   

One real-life example of how proper, and properly detailed, estate planning can help was the estate of a 56-year-old Ohio woman named Crystal. Crystal lived with her 85-year-old mother, Willie Mae, in a home in northeast Ohio. One day in late October 2014, Crystal died while at home. Willie Mae found her daughter’s body and the horrifying discovery caused her to suffer a “stress-induced” medical event. Within hours, Willie Mae was dead, too.    

The peculiar nature of the facts surrounding these women’s deaths would eventually lead to estate litigation. Willie Mae didn’t have any type of estate plan, but Crystal did. Crystal had a will that named her mother as the sole primary beneficiary and then named several others as alternate beneficiaries if her mother did not survive her.

As is fairly clear from these facts, Crystal seems to have had a basic but relatively well-thought-out plan. She wanted, as her primary goal, her wealth to go to her mother, for her mother to use and enjoy for the remainder of her life. If that goal could not be realized because the mother died before she did, then she had other people whom she wanted to receive her assets.

The problem arose because the distribution of Crystal’s assets could go two very different possible ways. If Willie Mae did not legally outlive Crystal, then all of Crystal’s assets would go to her named alternate beneficiaries. If Willie Mae did legally survive Crystal, then Crystal’s assets went to the mother and all of both women’s wealth would distribute under the rules of intestacy as part of the mother’s intestate estate. This led one of Crystal’s brothers, who was set to take from Willie Mae’s intestate estate, but was not a named beneficiary in Crystal’s will, to take the case to court, arguing that Crystal’s estate belonged to Willie Mae.

In Ohio, like most states, there’s a law to cover this circumstance. Like estate planning generally, the law of “simultaneous deaths” allows you to take control within your estate planning documents and state the exact length of time by which a beneficiary must outlive you in order to take from your estate. If you don’t name a timeframe in your estate, the state names one for you. In Ohio, the statutory time duration is 120 hours. Crystal’s will did not contain a simultaneous death clause, which meant that the statute’s time period was the one used. Willie Mae died less than 24 hours after Crystal did, which was far less than 120 hours.


That meant that, even though the mother technically outlived her daughter, as far as probate law was concerned, she had predeceased Crystal and Crystal’s wealth went to the people she had named in her will as alternate beneficiaries. Crystal, by taking the time to name those alternate beneficiaries, was able to continue to control her legacy even after her primary beneficiary (her mother) died.     

This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com. 


This article written and published by:
8039 Cooper Creek Blvd
University Park, Florida 34201
844.306.5272 (Phone)
@assuranceplan
#legacyassuranceplan


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