Springing Powers (Not Spring Flowers)
Powers of Attorney (POA) are state specific documents. That means each state has its own rules on what each document must say and how it must be executed. Because of this, a POA from Arizona may not work in Ohio and vice versa. In Arizona, there are three separate POAs: Financial, Healthcare, and Mental Healthcare. […]
Are you a Procrastinator? (If so, read this later!)
A USA Today poll found that the #1 reason people had not yet created a will was procrastination. Procrastination is prioritizing less urgent tasks in preference to more urgent ones, or doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable things even though the latter may be more important. I often tell clients, “It you […]
Let’s Eat Grandma! Let’s Eat, Grandma!
(Commas save lives)
I saw this t-shirt in the Sky Mall magazine a few years back and completely cracked up. Crazy as it may seem, punctuation, grammar, and correct usage of legal words and phrases can save thousands of dollars on litigation and estate administration costs. For example, last month I had a client whose father had prepared […]
Tips To Aid Adult Children
Lots of retirees are interested in assisting their adult children financially these days. The children, now in their 30s, 40s or 50s, may have lost a job, gotten a divorce or have their own children ready to go to college. http://gty.im/159955126 But the parents themselves may find themselves in a precarious position – they don’t […]
Inheriting A Collection May Mean Work
Adult children inherit many things when their parents pass away: money, property, family heirlooms and, sometimes, collectables. In many cases, it can be tricky to figure out what to do with the collectables. A story in the New York Times told of a woman who inherited a collection of photographs from her mother who had […]
Celebrity Estate Planning Mistakes Teach Lessons
Even though they usually have the money to get the best advice, celebrities often make mistakes with their estate plans. An article in Forbes suggests a few lessons recent celebrity deaths can teach us about estate planning. 1) Think about who you name to manage your trust. Robin Williams had created irrevocable trusts to provide […]
Inheriting A Windfall
Say you received a nice inheritance. Do you just go out and start spending willy-nilly? Best not to, according to a story posted on dailyfinance.com. Figuring out how to handle a sudden windfall is an issue many boomers are now facing and doing it the right way is important. The first thing you should do, […]
Inherited Wealth Good For The Economy?
Thomas Piketty, author of the best-selling “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” makes a case for the importance of inherited wealth. He says it is good for the economy, and its value is growing, not diminishing. Piketty sees a future that combines slow economic growth with high returns to capital and believes that peoples’ living standards […]
Boomers Inherit Complications
Sara Rowbotham Cornell was lucky. She inherited her parents’ New Hampshire farmhouse, built in the 1870s, when her mother passed away. She has a painting of it hanging in her own home. But it took her a few years to be emotionally ready to sell the place. Eventually, the cost of upkeep, plus a visit […]
Don’t Hope For An Inheritance, Ask For It
A Massachusetts court has ruled that simply rendering help or services to someone in the hope that it will result in a payment from that person’s estate is not enough to guarantee payment. In this case, reported on elderlawanswers.com, Suzanne Cheney performed many services for her stepfather, Anthony Turco, and expected to receive a share […]