A Certificate of Independent Review can be a critical component of your estate plan to ensure your wishes are honored. Read on to learn why.
A Prudent Trustee
Who is a prudent person? What is a prudent person? Are you prudent? It’s not the most commonly-used word, but if you’re ever appointed as a trustee or executor, you’re going to learn the definition pretty quickly. Your goal will be to become prudent personified. In fact, “the prudent person” is the standard against which […]
Transferring Your Vehicle to Your Trust in Nevada
There are several fact-specific reasons I don’t often counsel my clients to put their vehicles in their revocable trusts: You will go through several more vehicles during your life so it’s not worth the trouble. Your vehicle has no equity. Your insurer does not like to see a trust on registration. Nevada has a mechanism […]
Think Twice Before Adding Children to Title on Your Home
One of the most common techniques in “poor man’s estate planning” is a parent adding kids as co-owners on title to the home. On its face it makes sense: you want your kids to receive the property when you die, so adding them to the deed guarantees that will happen. Unfortunately, a lot could go […]
Estate Planning Life Cycle
The attached image was prepared for financial advisors and provides a sharp and simplified overview of progressing life stages and their respective planning issues. Granted it’s generalized, but it offers a good template for the average person. It doesn’t mention focusing on estate planning until the Empty Nester stage, but I would argue estate planning […]
Keeping Organized with Your Estate Planning
My wife and I have two boys, one is five and the other is two. They both love Legos, but one plays a little more neatly with them than the other. After helping my five-year-old build several cars and other sets, I told him he needed to put them up on his shelf before his […]
No Need to Be Intimidated by Estate Planning
I’ve heard many reasons why people delay estate planning. Perhaps one of the most common is the feeling that planning one’s estate is so overwhelming a task that they don’t know where to begin. Between determining heirs at death, deciding distribution timing and amounts, and ensuring the prevention of estate tax liability, among other issues, […]