The author, Ronald E. Hudkins aggressively coordinates with government agencies and organizations to compile information to help consumers avoid deceptive business practices. A description of his education and experience can be found at .
Choosing An Estate Planning Attorney If you have decided to put your affairs in order and finally accept the fact that estate planning is something most of us would be better off having than not, the next thing you might be wondering about is how to choose an estate planning attorney. The first thing to remember is that your estate-planning attorney is a person with whom you will share a great deal of personal information. The bottom...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - Changing A Will “I am taking you out of the will,” or “I am going to disinherit Gregory and leave all my money to Steven,” are statements that seem far more like they belong in an Agatha Christie novel than in a serious discussion of estate planning.Although the world is not filled with conniving relations who maneuver endlessly to gain the favor of a truly despicable older family matron or patron who uses their...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Offshore Trust - Effective Estate Planning, You Decide The creation of offshore trusts and other financial plans is a way of shielding your assets from the laws of the nation in which you reside. It can sometimes be used to remove one of the two certainties of life; taxes. Americans are far less likely than the citizens of other countries to put assets abroad because, although when you receive the benefits of being free of your country’s laws...... Similar Editorial : by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - Real Property Disbursement Problems Many parents want to give an equal share of the family home or some other sentimental form of real property (actual land usually) to their surviving children in equal shares. As an estate-planning attorney, one often sees the strange problems created by such plans. In particular if there are an even number of children, this may create hardships as voting blocks of family members eventually have to...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - The Life Estate The life estate is something every first year law student learns about when they study the arcane and often bizarre history of property law that harkens back to the days of English knights, lords and serfs, and the transfer of property through the ceremonial throwing of dirt clods with oaths of duty to accompany. The life estate is about as old as they come as instruments of wealth transfer go and...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - What About Life Insurance? Not too many years ago life insurance was considered to be the indispensable platform upon which all other estate planning efforts should be based. In fact, for those in the median and lower income ranges, it was often the only recognized method for protecting one’s heirs, particularly in the event of untimely death. However, over the past twenty or so years, the concept of financial planning has...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - Rules And Trustees If you are wisely attempting to put some assets into a trust (inter vivos) in your lifetime, then you have been paying attention to the important differences between wills and trusts. A trust created during your life will be far more secure with respect to its ability to withstand challenges to how your assets are to be distributed during estate planning than a will. Making a trust is a brave...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - Undue Influence Considerations Often during the final years of a dear friend’s or relative’s life some person or persons will take over the task of caring for their sick and elderly friend or relative to a greater degree than the other people in their lives. This is sometimes due to sheer geography where the aged or sick person lives nearer to one set of relatives than to another. In addition, some relatives or friends may be...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - Protecting Your Furred Friend The whole concept of estate planning has a couple of primary aims: 1) making sure that your assets are distributed where and how you want them to be, and 2) ensuring that your loved ones are cared for and able to comfortably live out their lives after you are gone. If you consider your pets as part of your property, to whom do you leave them – and the obvious answer is to someone who won’t...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning – Considering A Second Marriage Late In Life As the life expectancy of people in the United States increases, the reality of second and third marriages becomes more likely even for those who tend to marry for a long time if not until the death of their first spouse. Widows and widowers are increasingly likely to meet and decide that a second marriage is an excellent way to avoid spending their autumn years alone and that love is not the...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning -Intent To Disinherit Or Oversight? Sometimes family and estate planning begins before the family is complete, particularly in an age where people (generally) are waiting until later to have children. In that case there could be grandchildren named in a will and others not, who are all in the same family. The reason may simply be that the children who were left out were not born when the will was made and it is too late to remake it...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - Capacity Challenges Wills and trusts have an interesting history in a culture as heavily influenced by British common law as our own. The bequests of wills have been the pole star around which a great deal of mystery fiction has been written where furtive and anxious relatives wait around a long imposing table to hear what is to become of the family fortune and thus; what is to become of them. As usual, fiction and...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - No Contest Clause In Your Will There is value in the story of an older client who had seen a very interesting clause employed in a will. There was a great deal of money at stake and the many family members had little reason to love each other, because they had never met and never knew of each other’s existence. It was expected that the will would be heavily contested on several different fronts in every conceivable way. The...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning – Protecting Your Will��s Integrity In the not overly distant past, the writings of the testator were the only evidence of his or her intentions and mental capacity. Undue influence was harder to defend against when the only evidence was the testator’s writings and the recollection of those around them. Imagine the scene, the packed court room (perhaps I have a flair for the dramatic), the testimony as to the deceased’s mental...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
Estate Planning - Protecting Your Assets From The State It isn’t just the US Government waiting out there to grab a chunk of your hard earned estate when you become incapacitated or die. Strangely enough, state coffers are frequently enlarged through the mechanism of Medicaid. When someone requires long-term care in a nursing home, unless he or she has a private long-term care insurance policy, their whole estate may belong to the state when they pass...... Similar Editorial : by Moneyalert. | Source : Estate Executor
