For health care decision-making, when a doctor determines you are unable to make medical decisions for yourself, New York has the Health Care Proxy. The proxy, or agent, may make any medical decision for you except one – they cannot withdraw life sustaining measures, such as feeding tubes or a…
A client came in to see us for their follow-up consultation. The client shared that, in between their two meetings with us, the husband‘s brother had suffered a stroke and was now in a rehabilitation facility. He was a bachelor. He had no power of attorney or health care proxy. …
“Elder Law Estate Planning” is an area of law that combines features of both elder law (disability planning) and estate planning (death planning) and relates mostly to the needs of the middle class. Estate planning was formerly only for the wealthy, who wanted to shelter their assets from taxes and…
Planning for, and then executing, inheritances is often fraught with emotion. Most families choose to leave the inheritance “to my children in equal shares, per stirpes.” Per stirpes is Latin meaning “by the roots” so that if a child dies before the parent, their share goes to their children (if…
Revocable living trusts, where the grantor (creator) and the trustee (manager) are the same person, use the grantor’s social security number and are not required to file an income tax return. All income and capital gains taxes are reported on the individual’s Form 1040. Irrevocable living trusts come in two…
New York law prevents spouses from being disinherited. Instead, a spouse who is disinherited may go to court and claim their “elective share” which is the greater of fifty thousand dollars or one-third of the estate. Questions often arise as what the “estate” of the deceased spouse consists of. Naturally,…
Estate planning is not written in stone. Instead, estate plans should be revised and reconsidered when various major life events occur. Marriage may or may not involve a prenuptial agreement. Regardless, it may call for adding your new spouse’s name as beneficiary on insurance policies, on a will or trust,…
In order to contest a will, the objectant must have “standing”, meaning they would legally be entitled to a share or a greater share of the estate if the will was declared invalid. “Standing” alone, however, is insufficient. There must also be grounds for contesting as provided below. 1. Undue…
So many people who come in to see us do not understand the estate plan they have or do not know what is in their current plan. Some of the reasons for this are (1) time has inevitably blurred their memories, (2) the plan may be written in legalese and…
At Ettinger Law Firm, we are fond of saying “trusts create order out of chaos” — for three major reasons: First, as noted in previous columns, an ever-increasing number of Americans suffer a period of legal disability later in life. Without your own private plan for disability, consisting of a…