Four Reasons Your Will May Be Contested in Court

Having an updated last will and testament is more important than ever, especially now. However, a will that is poorly created or not frequently updated can be vulnerable to contestation. What is contestation? It is the formal objection to a will’s (or trust’s) validity because it either: a) doesn’t reflect the wishes of the person […]

My Dad’s Estate Plan: Good But Not Great

I remember a phone conversation I had with my dad on Jan. 15, 1991. His 47th birthday was the day before and I had forgotten to call him. It was also the first day of the first Gulf War. As I sat on the floor of my college dorm hallway on the community phone we […]

Have You Insured Your Family?

A colleague of mine recently told me that having a strong estate plan is like insuring your family. I thought that was a great analogy. Most of us spend thousands of dollars a year on insurance: car insurance, house insurance, health insurance, and life insurance. And while some of these only protect assets, the latter protects […]

Hawaii article

Aloha! I’m writing this on a plane as I fly to Hawaii for vacation-without my son. This is the first time my husband and I will be away from him for more than a weekend. I must admit, I have panicked more than a few times in the last few days. I now understand why […]

Can I Make Handwritten Changes to My Will

Becky Cholewka: A question I get a lot is, “Becky, can I make a handwritten change to one of my legal documents?” Handwritten changes very rarely work. A lot of it will depend on the rules of the state that you execute that document in, what the rules of valid execution are. For example, there […]

Two Documents You Need If You Have Minors

Becky Cholewka: I wanted to share the importance of two documents that you need to really consider making if you haven’t already done so. This is if you have minor children. The first document is a will. That’s because a will in Arizona is the only place where you get to name who raises your […]

Pre Planning Your Funeral

Becky Cholewka: Part of estate planning that a lot of people never even think about is thinking about how you want to be buried, or cremated, or what type of funeral you want. A couple years ago, my husband and I on Black Friday, that was our Black Friday shopping extravaganza. We went to Mountain […]

Setting Up POD or TOD On Your Bank Accounts

Becky Cholewka says: I wanted to take a moment and give you a couple tips about your checking savings and brokerage accounts. One way to make sure these accounts avoid the probate process is to make sure you have a beneficiary listed on each of your accounts. That does not mean one beneficiary form per […]

How Often Should You Review Your Estate Plan?

Becky Cholewka:  I always like assigning homework to my clients. It’s fun for me, because it’s something that somebody else has to do instead of me. One of the things of homework that I always assign is to make sure that my clients pick an important date, some date that they will remember, an anniversary, […]

The difference between simple and typical documents

Becky Cholewka: One of the things I hear all the time, probably about 3-4 times a week in my office is “Becky, you know what, I’m simple. I just need simple documents.” What I really think people are trying to tell me is that they are “typical”. Maybe they have a checking account, and a […]

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