Estate Planning Practice Blog

When You Become 18

A few things, well, make that a lot of things, happen once someone turns age 18.

The State Bar of California has a publication free for downloading called: "When You Become 18: A Survival Guide For Teenagers."

Click here for more information directly from the State Bar and to download your own copy.

As an estate planning attorney, a few things immediately come to mind when someone turns age 18. Mom and Dad cannot make decisions for you anymore. This may be good or bad, but depending on how you feel -- it is a wise idea to have a Durable Power of Attorney and Advance Health Care Directive put in place to nominate who should make financial and medical decisions on your behalf in the event you are not able to do so.  It may also be a good idea to draft a Will to name who should be in charge of your estate and get your stuff if you pass away.  Also, if you own significant assets, it may also be wise to have a Trust set up as well.

Having these kinds of documents in place may be especially important if you come from a blended family, have estranged parents or some other situation where these kinds of documents would be useful to avoid a sticky situation or conflict later.

Lots to think about when you are an adult!
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Estate Planning, Probate and Trusts involve complex areas of law. Individual circumstances must be considered before any advice can be given.  The general information above is not to be construed as legal advice, which can only be given after consideration of the unique facts of each matter. Please seek the advice or counsel of your attorney, financial advisor or CPA as it may be appropriate.

Forming an LLC for Rental Properties

It is worth repeating...

Forming an LLC is a good business and personal practice if you own rental property. It can be also be incorporated into your estate plan. A good estate planning attorney will address this aspect as they review your holdings and look for ways to protect you and your loved ones.

Of course, estate planning is not asset protection and vice versa.

Read TLD attorney Brooke Pollard's excellent post on LLCs here on our General Counsel blog. Also, here is a link to the Secretary of State's Business Portal on LLCs. Hiring an attorney to prepare your LLC is more than just filling out forms -- we also assist with preparing the LLC operating agreement among the LLC members and help you with a myriad of issues related to its formation.

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Estate Planning, Probate and Trusts involve complex areas of law. Individual circumstances must be considered before any advice can be given.  The general information above is not to be construed as legal advice, which can only be given after consideration of the unique facts of each matter. Please seek the advice or counsel of your attorney, financial advisor or CPA as it may be appropriate.

Deathbed Signings.

Our firm attorneys routinely make visits to where the client is located to execute their estate planning documents. We bring a notary to notarize the documents and to act as a witness during these signings.

We prefer not to make these visits because it almost always means that the client is suffering from an illness, is terminal or otherwise not able to make it to one of our offices. In other words, it means we are handling an estate plan in a precarious time and situation. The timing because the client is dying or aging rapidly... the situation because the estate plan could be contested for lack of capacity or undue influence.

But we do make these visits.

Things to be aware of:

• When we visit the clients, we reserve the right to leave without executing the estate plan if we feel the client has no capacity or is being unduly influenced.
  
• It costs more. You have to pay for travel time and related costs. And possibly even a rush fee.
  
• It's harder to understand the nature of your own estate plan when you are not feeling well.
  
• And it's a final realization that your estate planning should have been taken care of earlier. Instead of focusing on your health, well-being and comfort, you are focusing on stressful matters like estate planning in a very precarious time and situation.

Think about getting your affairs in order now while life and the living is good. You won't regret it.

Caregiving and the Case for Testamentary Freedom

Joshua C. Tate, Assistant Professor of Law, Southern Methodist University - Dedman School of Law; University of Pennsylvania Law School, has written another informative article. This time he writes about "Caregiving and the Case for Testamentary Freedom."

Excerpted from his abstract:

The article explores how almost all U.S. states allow individuals to disinherit their descendants for any reason or no reason, but most of the world's legal systems currently do not.

Tate contends that broad freedom of testation is defensible because it allows elderly people to reward family members who are caregivers. It deals with the growing problem of eldercare and how increases in life expectancy have led to a sharp rise in the number of older individuals who require long-term care, and some children and grandchildren are bearing more of the caregiving burden than others.

Recent econometric studies, not yet taken into account in legal scholarship, suggest a tendency among the American elderly to bequeath more property to caregiving children. A competent testator, rather than a court or legislature, is in the best position to decide how much care each person has provided and to reward caregivers accordingly rather than to have laws in place that punish them.

Very interesting. You can download it here in pdf format. Be sure to scroll down and click on one of the downloadable links.