Category Archives: Estate Planning
For Optimal Retirement Income, Withdraw Money From Your Investment Accounts First
While you are still in your prime working years, decisions related to maximizing your retirement income relate to increasing your earnings and living below your means, so that you can put as much of your income as possible toward retirement accounts and investments on which you can draw after you retire. From this perspective,… Read More »
Student Debt And Your Estate Plan
As going to college has become an expectation for a greater and greater number of young adults, student debt has become almost universal after those students graduate or decide, without making it all the way to graduation, that paying for college will do them more harm than good in the long run. If you… Read More »
Estate Planning Steps That LGBTQ+ Families Can’t Afford Not To Take
When a resident of Florida dies without a will, the person’s spouse, children, or siblings may inherit the estate, depending on your marital status and on which relatives are still living. The trouble is that estate law’s definition of a marriage and of parent-child relationships is somewhat narrower than the lived experiences of many… Read More »
The Personal Representative’s Duties to Known and Reasonably Ascertainable Creditors
Dealing with debts is no fun, whether the borrower for whose debts you are responsible is dead or alive. Contradictory rules about debt repayment and about the rights and obligations of borrowers and creditors can lead to confusion; just think about all the fine print at the bottom of the credit card statements you… Read More »
As Long as You Both Shall Live, and Then What?
In many ways, estate planning is simpler if you and your spouse have been together since you were in your 20s. After a marriage of all those years, you and your spouse share a circle of friends and a decades-long relationship with each other’s blood relatives, whether or not you have children together. Virtually… Read More »
Expensive Jewelry and Your Estate Plan
Probate disputes about items of jewelry that belonged to the deceased person happen more often than you might guess. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether it is the sentimental value or the appraisal value of the jewelry that is the true cause of the conflict, but this does not make the conflicts any… Read More »
The 4 Percent Rule and Your Estate Plan
For as long as you have had an income, you have probably been hearing that you should pay yourself first. This principle applies to estate planning, too. A successful estate plan requires you to have enough money save to last for the rest of your life, at least. The question of how much money… Read More »
UTMA Accounts for Minors: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
If you are a member of the 99 percent, the ways in which your children and grandchildren could benefit from your gifts are obvious, and you don’t have much of a cushion with which to pay fees and taxes associated with these gifts. The annual gift tax exclusion is a godsend to people for… Read More »
The Seven Signs of Undue Influence
Can you challenge someone’s will just because you are upset that they did not leave you as much money as you were hoping to get? Sure, but it is unlikely that the court will change its decision to administer the will as it is written. A will is a legally binding statement of a… Read More »
When Inheritance Disputes Turn One Spouse Against the Other
You have probably heard divorced people say that parenthood contributed to the breakdown of their marriage. Maybe someone you know grew to resent her husband after being stuck doing the lion’s share of housework and childcare, even though both spouses worked full-time. Perhaps someone else felt like he was his wife’s lowest priority, behind… Read More »
