Health Care Directive
February 13th, 2018
A Health Care Directive is an important document that should be part of any comprehensive Estate Plan. This document is a tool which gives you the ability to name a trusted individual (and a backup) to make health care decisions on your behalf when you are unable. The Health Care Directive can also specify what […]
Health Care Power of Attorney
February 7th, 2018
This week, I’ll focus on health care powers of attorney. This is one of the typical documents in a basic estate plan. However, people often give little attention to thinking about this POA. People do not like thinking of their own mortality or their own illness. But, unfortunately, it involves issues we all must face […]
Health Care Agents Matter – More Than You May Think!
January 30th, 2018
Health care agents (or surrogates/proxies/powers of attorney) play a much bigger role in fulfilling your clients’ health care wishes than you or your clients may realize. Did you know: Health care agents make medical decisions for about half of the adults over 65 who are hospitalized. Flipping it around, this means that on average, half […]
529 Plans for Tax Savings & Asset Protection
January 23rd, 2018
Qualified State Tuition programs, more commonly known as “529” plans are a great way to save for the education of loved ones. Contributions to the plans enjoy deferral of income taxation. When distributions are taken for qualified education expenses, like tuition, the distributions are income tax-free—even better! Normally, when a client has control over an […]
Asset Protection – Part 3
January 16th, 2018
This week, we’ll take yet another look at asset protection. In the Part 1, we saw that much depends upon whose assets you are looking to protect. We saw that, if the assets are yours, you have fraudulent transfer issues to consider. In Part 2, we looked at assets that are coming to you from […]
Asset Protection – Part 2
January 9th, 2018
This week, we’ll take another look at asset protection. Next week, we’ll delve even deeper into asset protection. As we saw in the last blog, much depends upon whose assets you are looking to protect. In last week’s blog, we saw that, if the assets are yours, you have fraudulent transfer considerations, etc., to consider. […]
Asset Protection – Part 1
January 2nd, 2018
Much depends upon whose assets you are looking to protect. If the assets are those that are coming to you, the debtor, then typically, those can be protected completely. We’ll look more at that in next week’s blog. But, this week, let’s assume that these are the debtor’s own assets to be protected. The debtor […]
Estate Planning for Major Life Events
December 27th, 2017
Estate planning attorneys do many things. We help people structure their affairs for the various stages of their lives. When the client is starting out, we may help them establish a basic plan. This might include: A Financial General Durable Power of Attorney. This would allow someone to make financial decisions for them if they […]
Selecting a Fiduciary
December 20th, 2017
Often, one of the most difficult choices for a client to make is the selection of people to make decisions for them. These fiduciaries may have great control over the client’s affairs, typically at times when the client would be most vulnerable or already gone. Let’s take a look at the various fiduciaries a client […]
Two Common Mistakes with Trusts
December 13th, 2017
Trusts are incredibly useful tools. But, like other useful tools, they do not fit every circumstance. They must be used appropriately. For example, a hammer is an exceptional tool to use when looking to drive a nail into a wall. But, if you hit the nail with a glancing blow, the nail will bend and […]