Estate Planning & Administration

It may sound wrong, but it is absolutely right. Minors cannot inherit money directly, either under a will or as the beneficiary on a life insurance policy or retirement account. There are other good tactics to be sure the money from those assets gets to your children at the right time for the right reasons. The topic is a key part of every estate planning conversation we have with our clients who have minor children.

This is rarely a good idea, and it can cause huge problems. For example, your house will be treated as your child’s asset if he or she files bankruptcy, encounters other financial difficulties, or gets divorced. We frequently work with parents who are looking for ways to ensure the safe transfer of assets between generations and provide support to their children. We can suggest a variety of options based on your circumstances.

Maybe. An appropriate, well-structured trust can have important benefits, such as minimizing taxes. On the other hand, an unnecessary or poorly conceived trust can create unintended problems for its beneficiaries. The pros and cons hinge on a number of factors such as the size and form of your assets and what you want to accomplish with the trust. We are experienced in the whole range of options. So we can advise you if a trust makes sense in your case and, if so, work with you to create it.

First, we find that many clients are surprised to learn that – when they add up retirement plans and insurance – they have more assets than they realized. It’s also important to remember that an estate plan isn’t just about distributing your estate. It also includes Powers of Attorney that let you determine how financial and health decisions can be made on your behalf if you are unable to make the decisions yourself. The documents are not difficult to draft, but if something significant happens to you, and you don’t have these documents in place, the consequences can be awful.

Yes. Serving as an Executor can be a very complicated and time-consuming job, and we routinely help our clients through the process. There are a number of deadlines to meet, documents to file, and decisions to make. Oversights or mistakes can seriously disrupt or delay the final disposition of the estate. We recommend that you contact us when you’re called upon to fulfill this role.