Give us a Call

Category: Estate Planning

Why You Should Designate Beneficiaries

A crucial, yet often overlooked, component of estate planning is reviewing assets, such as 401(k)s, pensions, and savings accounts, and ensuring you have listed a beneficiary for each of these.

Be Careful Not to Name Minors as Your Beneficiaries

Most people want to pass their assets to their children or grandchildren, but naming a minor as a beneficiary can have unintended consequences. It is important to make a plan that doesn’t involve leaving assets directly to a minor.  

There…

Be Careful Not to Name Minors as Your Beneficiaries

Most people want to pass their assets to their children or grandchildren, but naming a minor as a beneficiary can have unintended consequences. It is important to make a plan that doesn’t involve leaving assets directly to a minor.  

There…

Estate Planning for Your Digital Legacy

Arranging what happens to your digital assets and information when you pass away has become an increasingly essential component of comprehensive estate planning.

Estate Planning: An At-a-Glance Overview

Estate planning entails preparing your affairs for the future. While older adults might give more thought to estate planning, it is an essential tool at any age.

Appointing an Executor? Here’s What an Executor Cannot Do

If you are preparing a will, it is important to choose an executor you can trust, who is reliable, and who will take their role seriously. As part of your decision-making, you may also consider the things they would be prohibited from doing.

Does Power of Attorney End at Death?

Although every state’s laws and forms vary, most power of attorney forms specify that the agency relationship created by a power of attorney ends upon a person’s death.

Alternatives to Traditional Funeral Arrangements

After losing a loved one, consider the best way to honor them and their life. Sometimes, a traditional funeral is not the best fit. Today, there are many alternatives to a traditional funeral service and burial.

What Not to Include in Your Will

You may wonder if there’s anything you shouldn’t include in your will. The answer is yes. There are some things that you should avoid.

What Is a Life Estate?

A life estate often comes up in discussions of estate and Medicaid planning. It is a form of joint ownership that allows one person to remain in a house until his or her death, when it passes to the other owner.

Do Frequent Flier Miles Expire When You Do?

Accumulated frequent flier miles can be valuable assets, but what happens to those miles after somene dies? Can a spouse or other heirs inherit them, or do the miles simply evaporate like a contrail?

The Ins and Outs of Estate Sales

Following the death of a family member, you may find yourself needing to sort through many possessions accumulated over the deceased’s lifetime. An estate sale is one way to distribute, quickly and efficiently, those items that you do not want or need.

What Is an Executor?

An executor, also called a personal representative, is the person responsible for managing the administration of a deceased person’s estate.

How to Deal with an Estranged Child in Your Estate Plan

Unfortunately, not all families get along. If you are having problems with one of your children, you may not want them to benefit from your estate. There are several strategies for dealing with an estranged child in your estate plan.

Why Small Business Owners Need an Estate Plan

Running a small business can keep you busy, but it should not keep you from creating an estate plan. Not having a plan in place can cause problems for your business and your family after you are gone.  

5 Rights That Trust Beneficiaries Have

As a trust beneficiary, you may feel that you are at the mercy of the trustee, but depending on the type of trust, beneficiaries may have rights to ensure the trust is properly managed.

What to Do About an Unwanted Inheritance

While an inheritance is usually desired, there are some circumstances in which it might be unwelcome. If you don’t want an inheritance, you must disclaim it. 

When a Non-Grantor Trust Might Be Useful

One of the many factors to consider when setting up a trust is whether to make it a grantor trust or a non-grantor trust. While a grantor trust is more common, a non-grantor trust can be useful in certain circumstances. 

How Much Should a Trustee Be Compensated?

Serving as a trustee of a trust can be a huge responsibility, so trustees are entitled to compensation for their work. The amount of compensation depends on the type of trustee and the complexity of the trust. 

Who Makes Health Care Decisions If You Can’t?

What happens if you become incapacitated and are unable to voice your opinion on your health care? If you don’t have a health care proxy or guardian in place, state law chooses who can make those decisions.

The 6 Biggest Estate Planning Mistakes

While you likely have the best of intentions regarding how you want your estate distributed when you die or your affairs handled should you become incapacitated, without proper planning your best intentions may not be enough.

Do You Need a Lawyer to Write a Will?

You aren’t technically required to hire a lawyer to draft a will, but failing to do so could lead to costly problems for your family and other heirs.

Passing on Assets Outside of Probate: PODs and TODs

For a variety of reasons, people sometimes want some or all of their assets to pass directly to specific individuals upon their deaths, outside of probate.  POD and TOD accounts are one way to accomplish this.

How to Protect an IRA From Heirs’ Creditors

When a person declares bankruptcy, an individual retirement account (IRA) is one of the assets that is beyond the reach of creditors, but what about an IRA that has been inherited? 

6 Things to Ask Before Agreeing to Be a Trustee

Being asked to serve as the trustee of the trust of a family member is a great honor. But being a trustee is also a heavy responsibility. Here are six questions to ask before saying “yes.”

Using a Minority Valuation Discount to Reduce Estate Taxes

While the current estate tax exemption is quite high, a closely held family business may put your estate over the limit. Careful planning is necessary to lower or completely avoid the tax, and minority valuation discounts are one strategy.

Be Careful Not to Name Minors as Your Beneficiaries

Most people want to pass their assets to their children or grandchildren, but naming a minor as a beneficiary can have unintended consequences. It is important to make a plan that doesn’t involve leaving assets directly to a minor.  

Why Everyone Should Have an Estate Plan

Do you have a will? A durable power of attorney? A health care proxy? If not, why not? Failure to create an estate plan risks causing discord in your family for generations to come.

What Is a Directed Trust and What Are Its Benefits?

Directed trusts can be a useful estate planning tool, allowing you to place your family’s assets in a trust but benefit from the expertise of an advisor who knows more about the handling of certain trust functions than you may. 

What’s an “Atom Bomb” or “Contingent Remainder” Beneficiary?

When you’re planning your estate, among other things, you decide who should inherit your assets. You choose your beneficiaries, typically your children, grandchildren, or other close relatives. But what if all the beneficiaries you’ve
chosen and all their descendants have died? Then it would fall to the “contingent remainder” beneficiary.

Leaving Assets Can Be Tricky – Part 3

A Special Needs Trust is tailored to help a beneficiary with special needs receive an inheritance without jeopardizing their current or future public needs-tested benefits, such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”).

Leaving Assets Can Be Tricky

Maybe you grew up without much. You worked hard. You earned a good education. You succeeded in life even though the streets weren’t paved with gold where you grew up. Maybe you even grew up in a very impoverished, oppressed community.

Young Adult Estate Planning

We here at Ergood Law feel that it is important to have the right protection in place so you can always help your child.

Planning for the Sandwich Generation

People are living longer and are having children later in life. Due to this combination of demographic factors, many more people are in the “Sandwich Generation.”

Whom Do You Want to Get Your Assets?

It’s important to consider whom you’d want to get your assets when you die. Most of us have an idea of whom we’d choose. But, it’s also important to consider who should get those assets if your preferred recipient isn’t around.

Reasons an Estate Plan Could Be Challenged

Estate Planning is critical to making sure your wishes are carried out. This series focuses on how an Estate Plan could be challenged. This series will show the importance of doing Estate Planning in the right way. The first article in the series looked at formal requirements. This second article focuses on undue influence.

Make Your Own Plan

Some people plan their estates carefully. Some people don’t have an estate plan at all. That’s called dying intestate. In that situation, the state in which they live at their death has a default plan for them which determines who gets their assets. The state’s plan might suit them, or it might not suit them at all.

The Little Things May be the Most Important

Often, the smallest things have the most sentimental value. Your grandmother’s silverware or your grandfather’s railroad watch could connect you to them in a special way. Your mother’s ring or your father’s Boyscout bugle could hold a special place in your heart.

Choosing The Right Agent

Written by Attorneys for the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys A Secret Agent may be very important to protecting the nation. Your Agent is just as important for your protection. An Agent is the person who makes financial decisions for you under a Financial Power of Attorney or makes medical decisions for you under […]

Estate Planning is About More Than Taxes

Article written by the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys The new tax law doubled the amount that can be passed free of federal estate taxation, at least through 2025. In 2018, an individual can pass $11.18 million free from federal estate taxation. But, estate planning was never just about estate taxation. The core of estate planning has […]

The Benefits of Trusts

There are many good reasons to use trusts. Trusts avoid the probate process, which is a public process to change title of assets from the deceased person to the new recipient. Trusts may be helpful in tax planning. Specialized irrevocable trusts may be helpful in qualifying for Medicaid.

Estate Planning: It’s Not Just About the Estate Taxes

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1532706005220{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]This article by the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys outlines other very important estate planning considerations. July 25, 2018 When we plan our lives and our estates, it’s not all about the estate taxes. Of course, estate taxes should be taken into consideration, but there are many more important factors. That’s […]

Practice Areas

About Our Firm

Learn More