Eleven years after the death of James Brown, his estate planning has fallen short in the plan to distribute his wealth efficiently. None of the beneficiaries in the will have received even a dime of the money. This includes underprivileged children in South Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Brown intended to donate significant amounts of money […]

  You may not need to necessarily record a trust although an important component of your trust strategy is to fund it after you have put it together. Far too many people stop after the establishment of a trust and fail to follow through with the funding. There are many different estate planning concepts included […]

  When most people think of estate planning, they are looking at their individual opportunities available with putting together critical documents and strategies to protect them and their loved ones. The truth is however, that if you play a critical role in any business, you can also benefit from estate planning for the company. Without […]

Although in the previous three blogs, we’ve discussed getting rid of unnecessary paperwork and clutter after three months, one year and seven years, some documents should be kept on hand forever.  This is because they are so important that you may need to reference them at any point in time and it may be a […]

  It can be difficult to figure out which documents you’ll need to have on hand, which ones should be stored in a safe deposit box and have a copy at your lawyer’s office, and those that you can eventually get rid of after some time.  This is because there are so many different periods […]

 Some documents need to be kept longer than the three-month period as discussed in yesterday’s blog. These should be stored in a safe location so that they can be accessed quickly in the event of a sudden problem, or in the event that your financial power of attorney agent needs to step in and make […]

Many people worry about having the appropriate documents on hand. In this four-part series, we’ll explore the various issues associated with keeping documents so that you know exactly what to hold on hand for the long term and what can be disposed of in a safe manner after an appropriate period of time. Certain documents […]

This episode discusses housing options for seniors and ways to pay for them.

Do you think you don’t need estate planning? Perhaps you did estate planning in the past, but you think that new high estate tax exemptions mean that it doesn’t make sense to engage in this process.  Many estate planning attorneys and clients alike, were interested in how the most recent tax bill will play out. […]

When a spouse passes away, it can be an alarming discovery to realize that they have more liabilities than they did assets. Paying off these expenses can be extremely confusing for a spouse who was appointed as the personal representative of the estate. When an estate does not have appropriate assets to pay all of […]