There are two key things to do to make your estate simpler to handle. The first is what we do: prepare good estate planning documents and keep them up to date. Revocable living trusts and wills do not become invalid because of the passage of time; however, they should be reviewed periodically to make sure [...]
In case of your death or disability, your trustee, executor, or financial agent needs to know where your assets are so they can take action to secure those assets and use them for your care. If you have your financial documents stored digitally, your financial agents need to have access to that information. Writing down [...]
Your estate planning binder should contain the originals of all your estate planning documents, but that is not everything that is needed for someone to help you in a time of crisis. Your agent under your medical power of attorney should have the following information, which can easily be kept in your estate planning binder [...]
What documents does everyone need? They absolutely need a will or a living trust. They definitely need a medical power of attorney and an advanced directive. An advanced directive allows you to choose the end of life care you want and direct your agent as to your choice . There simply isn't an adult that shouldn't [...]
There are assets that I call legacy assets that need a special level of protection that is not difficult to provide. What do I mean by legacy assets? I mean assets that are intended not to be sold and passed through from one generation to the next. Here are some common examples. A family farm [...]
What do you do when your loved one needs long-term care in a facility but can't afford to pay for it? Medicaid is the answer for 70% of this country's seniors. Medicaid is a means tested, federally-funded program for long-term care that is administered by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The most [...]
The most common will is one involving a married couple that says all to the surviving spouse and then equally to our children. Those wills have severe flaws. The first is that the surviving spouse, upon receiving the assets, has the full right to re-gift them how they wish. You might not imagine that your [...]
What is the difference of doing your planning with a will or a living trust? A will is generally a simpler document to draft and therefore you save some up-front costs in creating the document. However, since probate is required of a will, you have costs that are going to be incurred when [...]
What's the difference between doing planning with a will versus a revocable trust? Most people understand the concept of a will. It is someone's written legal instructions as to how their assets are being divided and who is going to be in charge - their executor. A revocable living trust is something that many [...]
A second fundamental reason why we plan is to deal with incapacity or disability as opposed to death. Although I can guarantee you all of you will die, I can assure you that most of you will have someone in your family affected by incapacity. Incapacity means the legal inability to make decisions for yourself [...]