Estate planning often involves the transition of a small or family-owned business to the next generation. Despite best plans and practices by estate planners and business coaches, this transition often fails, leaving dissatisfied families and employees in the wake of…
Category: Newsletter
Protecting Personal Injury Settlements with Trusts
Personal injury attorneys, and their clients, often seek the advice of elder law attorneys when complicated issues associated with Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and Medicare are presented in a case. Our role as an advisor in these cases has…
What to Expect When Qualifying As an Executor or Administrator of an Estate
When a loved one passes away, often the relatives of the deceased are tasked with the difficult responsibility of wrapping up the estate. While it is possible for an estate to avoid probate if all of the decedent’s assets are…
Don’t Forget Fluffy and Fido When Creating Your Estate Plan!
The majority of households in the United States have a dog, cat, bird, or other furry, feathered or scaled animal companion. Of those households, many consider their pets to be family members. Because most pets have shorter life spans than…
Financial Advice for an Unstable Market
Anyone watching the news in the last six weeks has heard gloom and doom predictions for the economy and the stock market. Many look at bar graphs of market returns which show steady slash to the lower right \ and…
Is Your Estate Plan COVID-19 Ready?
We often advise clients that they should review their estate planning documents (Wills, Trusts, Advance Medical Directives, General Durable Powers of Attorney, Beneficiary Designations) every few years or when changes in their family, financial and/or medical circumstances occur. In light…
Electronic Notarization Insufficient for Execution of Wills
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increased demand for estate planning documents. Some of these documents involve do-it-yourself plans and, rumor has it, electronic notarization services. The problem is that few people outside of the…
Beware of Real Estate Deed Solicitation Scams
As elder law and estate planning attorneys, the work that we do for our clients often requires that real property be transferred or given either to a trust or to another party. This requires that a deed be signed and…
7 Common Probate Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
If you’ve recently been named as the Executor or Administrator of a loved one’s estate and are about to enter into the probate estate administration process, make sure that you don’t make one or more of these common mistakes. Failing…
