Legacy Assurance Plan: estate plan administration

Monday, July 10, 2017

Your Estate Plan Caregiver | Working to Make Sure Your Wishes are Honored

Summary: Caregivers and the people for whom they care often have very close contact. This closeness may create a desire in that patient to include a caregiver in his/her estate plan. Whether the caregiver is a relative or a non-relative, this objective can be challenging sometimes, and requires careful estate planning to ensure that the goals are reached.

For many people, they may spend more time with their caregivers than with all of their children and grandchildren combined. Naturally, this closeness of proximity can lead to personal closeness sometimes. In those situations, patient may come to view a caregiver as an extension of his/her family and wanted to include a distribution to the caregiver in his/her estate plan.

If that caregiver is a non-relative, you may decide you want to include him/her in your plan. If that caregiver is a relative, such as a child or a grandchild, your plan may already include that relative, but you might decide you want to honor your relationship with that relative by giving him/her a larger portion of your wealth than your other children/grandchildren.

In this, as with any non-traditional estate plan objective, there are two things that are key: communication and careful planning. In many families, it may be helpful to sit down with all of your immediate family and explain your planning objectives and why they are what they are. Remind your family of all the time and effort your caregiver has expended and selflessness he/she has shown, and explain why it means so much to you to honor that in your plan. The laws in some states have been changed to make estate plan contents much easier for the challenger to win where the beneficiary in dispute is a caregiver. (Illinois, for example, made changes to its laws in 2015 that make it very easy for a relative to win a contest against a caregiver if the distribution the caregiver was to receive amounted to more than $20,000.)

Planning is also vital. If you are planning to create an uneven distribution among relatives (such as favoring a caregiver child/grandchild over other children/grandchildren,) or making a distribution to a non-relative caregiver, there may be ways to increase your odds of accomplishing your goals successfully. In some states, it may help you to use a living trust in your estate plan. In most places, living trusts generally offer more privacy than traditional wills and are generally harder to contest successfully than wills. If you anticipate a challenge (even after communicating with your loved ones,) this tool may be helpful to achieving your goals.

In other states, though, other techniques may be preferable. As noted above, some states (like Illinois in 2015) have altered their laws to make it somewhat difficult for a patient’s plan to reward a caregiver to survive a plan contest. In states like that, your estate planning attorney may have important advice on how to achieve your desires. You may be able to reduce the odds of a successful challenge by creating written documentation that establishes proof that you were competent and that your plan represents your genuine desires, free of any duress, fraud or undue influence. Alternately, your attorney may be able to suggest other options, such as providing a gift to your caregiver during your lifetime, which would avoid the pitfalls of these new laws (as they generally apply only to death transfers...

In the end, this type of plan requires many of the same things that most any plan does: clear communication, careful planning and working with the right experienced estate planning attorney.

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.comwww.legacyassuranceplan.com.

This article written and published by:

Legacy Assurance Plan

8039 Cooper Creek Blvd

University Park, Florida 34201

844.306.5272 (Phone)

info@legacyassuranceplan.com (email)

@assuranceplan

#legacyassuranceplan

Click Below To See Other Legacy Assurance Plan Related Sites:

https://www.facebook.com/legacyassuranceplan

http://legacyassuranceplan.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/AssurancePlan

https://www.linkedin.com/company/legacy-assurance-plan?trk=biz-companies-cym

https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/108736377719628241578/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx9HBYFIYdohfnrfW_XRkIQ

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Getting a ‘Sturdy’ Estate Plan to Survive the Challenges that May Lie Ahead

Summary: Successful estate planning requires many things. Two of these things are being pro-active and then remaining diligent. You have to be pro-active in going out and securing a complete and well-thought-out plan, and then you have to remain diligent in completing any necessary documents to make any changes you desire in your plan. If you do these things carefully with a reliable estate planning attorney, your plan can withstand many challenges.

Many times, court cases involving estate plans are the result of something going very much wrong. Sometimes, though, there are cases where the deceased person has a solid plan and it survives a court challenge. A couple of years ago, a case came before the Court of Appeals in Arizona that involved such a plan. The creator of the plan was a Tucson-area woman who, in her early 70s, decided in 2000 to get her affairs in order. Her 2000 plan included a revocable living trust, a pour-over will and powers of attorney.

Like many living trusts, Julia’s originally called for her trust assets to be distributed, upon her death, to her three sons. Like many people, Julia’s preferences evolved over the years. As her goals changed, she dutifully created amendments to her trust to reflect these new objectives. In January 2012, Julia changed her trust’s distribution instructions. Instead of her assets going in equal shares to her three sons, she amended the trust agreement to give certain specific bequests to her children and then to split the reaming trust assets 50-50 between two of her grandsons (both children of her son, Eric.) The trust named Eric as the first successor trustee.

Unexpectedly, Julia died one month later in a massive house fire that destroyed the home and much of her personal property. Eric began that task of administering the trust and distributing the remaining assets when his two brothers began a challenge to the plan, which led the family into litigation.

The brothers argued that the law required the trial court to determine what assets were in the trust and what rights each of the children and grandchildren had. The trial judge ruled against the brothers, upholding the validity of the trust as amended. The appeals court also issued a ruling affirming that trial court decision.

The brothers’ challenge, according to the courts, never identified a valid factual dispute. The facts of the case were not in dispute with regard to the amended trust’s calling for the two other brothers to receive only certain specific bequests from the trust’s assets. Upon the mother’s death, the other brothers did not dispute that Eric, as successor trustee, made those bequests to his brothers. In one court filing, the brothers made an allegation that Eric had improperly manipulated the mother, but because the brothers did not advance this argument in the proper way, the courts refused to consider that argument. This meant that the estate plan, as amended, had withstood the challenge and would be carried out.

In this case, the deceased was pro-active and diligent. She got a plan with a living trust and a pour-over will. As her needs and goals changed, she made changes to her plan (in the form of trust amendments.) Because she took these steps, her objectives she wanted to achieve were carried out.