Legacy Assurance Plan: proper estate planning

Showing posts with label proper estate planning. Show all posts

Monday, February 5, 2018

Making Sure Your Estate Plan is Customized to Do What You Want

Summary: Having a proper and complete estate plan is about more than just making sure that you have all of the documents needed for your plan. It is also about making sure that the documents you have are customized to achieve the estate planning goals you have. By working with an experienced estate planning attorney, you can get the well thought out plan you need to provide peace of mind for you and your loved ones.

Generally, if you have done very much research about estate plan, you probably know that there are certain documents that go into a complete estate plan. These include your will, your financial power of attorney, your healthcare power of attorney and your advance directive or living will (although some states combine these last two into one document.) Many complete plans also include a living trust to provide for the added benefit of avoiding probate.

Getting a complete plan, especially as a senior, is about more than just getting those documents. It is about getting the RIGHT version of those documents to best meet your needs. As noted above, people who desire to avoid probate may strongly consider including a living trust (or trusts) in their plans, while those who don’t value avoiding probate might not. Similarly, the nature of your goals and preferences may alter, not the number and type of documents in your plan, but the language that is (or is not) included within those documents.

Here’s how that can work with a hypothetical case: Jane Doe is a widow with four children. Jane’s health is declining. Her youngest daughter, Mary, moved in with Jane 10 years ago to provide in-home care for the mother. Because Mary has provided 10 years of care for no charge, Mary’s siblings agree that Mary should eventually receive Jane’s house. Jane, who is on Medicaid, recently broke her hip is now going to have to go to a nursing home to stay. The siblings want to transfer the title of Jane’s house to Mary now, with Mary’s brother, John, (who is Jane’s agent under her financial power of attorney) handling the transfer on Jane’s behalf.

Certainly, this family has many things to consider. They must make sure that, in making this transfer, they don’t do anything to jeopardize Jane’s Medicaid benefits. However, assuming that the family can do the transfer without causing Medicaid eligibility problems and assuming that all of the siblings remain “on the same page” about the transfer, there may still be a problem that would totally prevent the transfer. Depending on how Jane’s financial power of attorney is worded, John may not have the authority to sign over the house to Mary. Many financial powers of attorney do not give the agent named within them the power to make gifts of the assets owned by the principal (which is the person who is giving the powers or, in this case, Jane.) If John signs a deed in favor of Mary without property authority, that could cause problems for him, Mary and Jane.

Of course, in other situations, you may not want to have a provision in your financial power of attorney that gives your agent the authority to gift away your assets. You may prefer that your agent not have that much power over your assets. The key point is that each person’s power of attorney could be different based upon his or her individual needs. That’s why you need to make sure all of the documents in your plan are optimized for your needs, and are reviewed periodically to make sure that they remain ideally structured and worded to achieve what you want.

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:

Legacy Assurance Plan

8039 Cooper Creek Blvd

University Park, Florida 34201

844.306.5272 (Phone)

info@legacyassuranceplan.com (email)

@assuranceplan

#legacyassuranceplan

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Tuesday, December 5, 2017

How Proper Estate Planning Can Protect Your Assets and Guard Against Unexpected Claims Against Your Estate

Summary: Two of the many outstanding benefits of estate planning are that estate planning allows you to have control, and estate planning provides protection. By planning, you can control who gets your assets, you can control how much each person gets and you can control who gets nothing. With estate planning, you can also protect your intended beneficiaries by making sure that a long-lost blood relative doesn’t appear for the first time after your death and, by using the laws of intestacy, walk away with a portion (or all) of your wealth.

Multiple television outlets, including PBS and TLC, have shows that chronicle celebrities and other well-known people who seek to discover their personal ancestral roots. Genealogy research, especially when going further back in time, can reveal some shocking stories. Research from the 18^th and earlier parts of the 19^th Century revealed some colorful stories, including that some men led double lives complete with two wives and two families (each in different states.)

In the 20^th Century, as things changed, the possibility for, and frequency of, those situations declined. Many families really did look like “Ozzie and Harriet” or “Leave It to Beaver.” But today, families’ stories and relationships are becoming more diverse. With that increased diversity, there can be the possibility of more issues and complications when it comes to estate planning.

Did you know that, in some states (like Minnesota,) a half-sibling is legally entitled to inherit in intestacy just as much as a full sibling? That is one reason why many people sought to prove that they were the children of a jazz musician named John Rogers. If the Minnesota courts had found them to be the children of John Nelson, then they would be the half-brothers and sisters of rock-n-roll superstar Prince and, because Prince left behind no will or living trust, they’d be entitled to receive as big a share of his estate as Prince’s only full sibling, his sister Tyka.

In other states, like Florida, the law of intestacy expressly says that your half-siblings are entitled to exactly one-half of what a full sibling would receive.

Just like in Prince’s case, leaving your legacy up to the rules of intestacy means leaving your legacy up to these types of statutory one-size-fits-most rules. There are many things that can go wrong. For one thing, a portion (or all) of your wealth could end up going to someone you barely knew, or didn’t know at all, if that person is able to file a claim and persuade the court that they are the legal child of your father or your mother. While a lot of us might imagine that our families’ relationships resemble the Cleavers, sometimes the truth is that things happen and secrets are kept, especially within families. And sometimes those secrets don’t even come out until after you’re gone, and can have a dramatic impact on the distribution of your assets.

For another thing, these rules do nothing to reflect your personal input or your personal life experiences. Say, for example, you come from a large family with full siblings and half-siblings. If you’re the last of the first “set” of kids, or the first of the second “set” of children, it is entirely possible that you could be closer (both emotionally and in terms of age) to some of your half-siblings that you are to some of your full siblings. Under intestacy, if you live in state with laws like Florida’s, each of your full siblings will get exactly double what each of your half-siblings get, regardless of the realities of your individual family.

With an estate plan including a will or a will and living trust, you can take control and you can customize the distribution of your wealth to match you preferences and desires. You can specify exactly who you want to receive your wealth and explicitly leave anyone who you didn’t list in your plan (including any and all long-lost half-siblings) exactly nothing. You have the power over your legacy.

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

Monday, October 9, 2017

A 'True Crime' Story from Ohio | What It Teaches With Regard to Proper Estate Planning

Summary: When it comes to estate plan reviews, the list of events that may trigger the need for a review is potentially longer than you might think. Many things, including births, deaths, marriages and divorces may indicate that a review is in order. When you review your plan, it is important to go over every part of your estate plan, not just your will and/or trust. As part of your review, you should check your assets with death beneficiary designations on them, and ensure that they are up-to-date and have a sufficient number of contingent beneficiaries named to ensure that your desires will be met.

One of the more popular stories on some TV "news magazine" shows are the "true crime" stories. A dark and tragic tale that recently emerged from Cleveland, Ohio, sounds like something from "20/20" or "Dateline." It had murder, intrigue and greed. The case also included an estate planning peculiarity that introduced an ironic twist into the outcome.

In the summer of 2013, a Cleveland firefighter named William Walker was a newlywed. By that fall, he was dead, having been murdered in his driveway. Ultimately, law enforcement concluded that the killing was a murder-for-hire, orchestrated by the firefighter's new wife. The wife was very deeply in debt, according to prosecutors at her trial, having run up tens of thousands of dollars of credit card and loan debt, some of which she took out in her new husband's name, the cleveland.com website reported.

The wife's way out? She asked her daughter and the daughter's boyfriend to find someone to kill her husband, so that she could collect the proceeds of the husband's life insurance policy. The life insurance was a $100,000 policy, so the wife concluded that the death payout could resolve her financial peril. The wife, according to prosecutors at her trial, pushed for a quick courthouse wedding in July 2013 and then began working toward her plan of killing her new husband, believing that her status as spouse would automatically entitle her to the husband's pension and life insurance benefits.

There was one thing that the wife didn't account for, however, and that fact is something that is relevant to almost anyone with an estate plan. The wife thought that simply because she was the spouse, she would collect the life insurance payout. The problem for her was that she was wrong.

In the case of many items with death beneficiary designations on them, the beneficiary designation paperwork trumps everything. Regardless of the legal relationship between the account/policy holder and the named beneficiary, the person named on the form gets the death benefit, unless certain exemptions (like the beneficiary murdering the account/policy holder) occur. In this case, the deceased man had never changed his paperwork on his life insurance. The last time the husband completed a death beneficiary designation on the life insurance policy, he named his wife at the time, who, by 2013, was his ex-wife.

That paperwork was still valid and still controlled the payment of the life insurance death benefit. Because the ex-wife was an innocent bystander in this murder-for-hire scheme, and her name was on the beneficiary form, she received the death benefit payout on the life insurance policy, regardless of her legal relationship to the deceased man (or the fact that he was married to another person when he died.)

You might review this case and say, "Look! This man's delay in updating actually helped him avoid paying his killer!" That's not entirely accurate, though. Under something called the "slayer statute," the insurance company would not have been required to pay the wife once law enforcement began investigating (and later convicting) the wife for the man's murder.

While it is very likely he wouldn't want his murdering wife to receive the payout, there's no indication he wanted that money to go to his ex-wife, either. With a properly updated beneficiary form, complete with alternate (a/k/a contingent) beneficiaries named, the father of three could have been protected and could have ensured that the money went to the right person/people.