Asset Protection

More Good Reasons to Add a Trust to Your Estate Plan

Published on: August 5, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Trusts are an excellent way to pass and preserve wealth privately. Two of the main benefits of using a trust to pass your assets – timeliness and cost – were explored in our previous post. Unlike the probate process that accompanies the settlement of an estate by will, a trust provides your heirs with immediate access to the trust benefits. The settlement of an estate passed by will can also gobble over 4% of an estate’s value, regardless of size. A third reason people use trusts to pass wealth is that they also enable the settlor, or donor, to minimize estate taxes, making more of your wealth available to your beneficiaries.

Married couples

The death of a spouse is devastating. Whether the death was sudden or after a long illness, one day you are married and the other day you are not. The deceased spouse wants to be able to provide for the living spouse, especially if the living spouse is battling a chronic health condition. Paying for your spouse’s living expenses and medical care and expenses, including long-term medical care is of paramount importance to the deceased spouse. Married couples can benefit from the establishment of a revocable trust.

Adding a Trust to Your Estate Plan

Published on: August 1, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Trusts are an excellent method for individuals with substantial assets to pass their wishes and wealth to others or a charitable organization when they pass. The key to an effective trust begins and ends with documentation. The proper documents, when drafted carefully by a qualified attorney, ensures your beneficiaries will reap the benefits of the trust and its property. A trust will fail, if the documentation is improper, negating the settlor’s wishes.

What is a trust?

A trust is a legal document that contains the settlor’s final instructions about to whom his or her assets will pass when they die. There are three separate people involved in a trust creation, administration, and distribution: a settlor, trustee, and beneficiary. Their roles are as follows:

Needs of Aging LGBT Community

Published on: May 8, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Families today, as always, come in all shapes and sizes. This includes sexual orientation. As gays, lesbians, bi-sexual, and transgender people (LGBT) age and move into retirement communities, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities, how welcome are they?

An individual who has lived a good life at 85 wants to continue living that life as he or she ages and needs assistance with self-care, regardless of where the individual lives – a retirement community, nursing home, or assisted living facility.

Many residents of such places deal with loss on a continual basis no matter their sexual orientation. There are limitations on movement – the ability to come and go as one pleases and limitations on relationships – spouses, partners, and close friends die or because they move away are too far or unable to visit regularly. So there is a tremendous loss of consortium as one ages.

Estate Planning Details to Always Disclose to Your Estate Planning Advisor

Published on: April 14, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

To create the best possible estate plan, it is critical to not only tell your advisor important information about your case. It is also critical to be honest. Failure to honestly disclose information about your financial status can lead to a number of serious complications and can sometimes even require your advisor to perform estate planning all over again. Unfortunately, there are a number of important things that people forget to disclose their estate planning advisor, which is why this article will list some of the important things that you should remember to mention.

# 1 – Family Issues

Many people with challenging family issues can find these matters difficult to discuss even though they have the potential to greatly interfere with a person’s estate plans. Often, an experienced estate planning attorney can help create estate plans that take these issues into considerations. For example, in situations where a person has an adult child with substance abuse, it might be possible to create a trust or other type of estate planning device to pass assets to the child. In deciding whether details should be disclosed to an estate planning lawyer, it is important to inform an estate planning advisor about any former spouses, any child support that you pay, any existing legal agreements in your family, or any relationships that you might have that could lead to financial obligations.

What Does It Meant to Decant a Trust?

Published on: April 10, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

It is important to parents and grandparents who are engaged in estate planning to consider the various challenges that can arise. Failure to properly take these issues into consideration can result in estate plans being jeopardized. Fortunately, in these situations, it is possible to decant a trust. This article explores exactly what decanting is and some of the reasons why people to decide to decant a trust.

Decanting a Trust in New York

For many years, estate planning involved irrevocable trusts which mean that even if a trust creator’s situation changed, it was still impossible to modify the trust. In recent years, however, many states have created “decanting” statutes that allow broken trusts to be modified. During the “decanting” process, a person laces assets in an inadequate irrevocable trust into a new irrevocable trust that has more adequate provisions. The nature of decanting statutes changes between changes. In accordance with New York law, an authorized trustee who has unlimited discretion over principal located in trust has the ability to appoint these assets into another trust. To move trusts in this manner, a person is not required to obtain consent of the beneficiaries and can do so without a court order.

Healthy Vision: Taking Care of Your Eyes as You Age

Published on: April 8, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

The Roman statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “the eyes are the window to the soul.” In reality however, the eyes are the window to hidden health conditions. A dilated eye exam can detect diabetes, hypertension, auto-immune disorders, like Lupus, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, certain cancers, like skin cancer, and tumors, before these medical conditions are confirmed with blood tests or other diagnostic testing.

Individuals with “good” eyes should have their eyes examined once every two years. Other folks should consult with their eye doctor to determine how often to follow-up for chronic conditions like glaucoma, cataracts, nearsightedness, and farsightedness.

Protecting your vision

The Difference between Roth and Traditional IRAs

Published on: March 30, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

After learning about IRAs, one of the most common questions that people ask is what is the difference between the various types. As a result, this article reviews some of the primary differences between Roth and traditional IRAs.

The Primary Difference between the Two Types of IRAs

With traditional IRA accounts, the money that a person contributes to their account is not considered part of their taxable income for that year. Instead, once money is placed into a traditional IRA account, the amount is capable of growing without being taxed in the way that other types of traditional income are. Instead, the amount that is placed in a traditional IRA is taxed when a person withdraws money from the account and is taxed at whatever your ordinary income tax rate is in that year. A person, however, does not receive a deduction for contributions to a Roth IRA. Instead, income tax is placed on money that is then placed into the account where the amount grows in a manner similar to traditional IRA accounts.

Why Estate Planning is Critical Even If You Don’t Have Children

Published on: March 25, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Estate planning involves a number of personal decisions. The best estate plans are personalized to the individual that writes them. This is why online, one size fits it all estate planning documents are often not the best idea. This is also why some people struggle to complete their estate planning goals. Even if you do not have children, it is still absolutely vital to create an estate plan because it can help achieve a number of other goals, which are discussed in this article.

# 1 – Incapacity Issues

Every adult should have an advance healthcare directive as well as a power of attorney regarding financial and legal decisions. These documents help to make sure that a person is taken care of in case they become incapacitated and can no longer care for themself. If you become incapacitated without having any estate planning documents in lace, your loved one will be required to make decisions that they think are in your best interests. Ideally, the person that is named to act in this role should be someone that you trust to make sure your wishes are fully carried out as well as an individual who is capable of weather even the most difficult decisions.

People with Few Assets May Still Benefit From a Trust

Published on: March 21, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

It is never easy to estate plan. For one, estate planning involves uncomfortable decisions about how your assets will be divided following your death. Estate planning, however, is critical because it avoids a number of serious obstacles including family disputes, additional taxes, and the probate process. Despite the potential to solve the numerous problems that would otherwise, some people still believe that estate planning should only be performed by the extremely wealthy. Instead, estate planning tools including trusts can be a particularly valuable tool for individuals. As a result, this article examines some of the advantages that people frequently realize by creating trusts.

# 1 – Trusts Help Outline How Assets Are Received

One of the primary benefits of creating trusts is that they allow individuals to exercise control over how their assets are divided following their death. By spelling out exactly how assets should be divided, a person can avoid any unnecessary disputes that might later arise among family members. When younger children are involved, trusts are capable of outlining the age and condition that children must be to receive assets.

Tips on Picking a Personal Representative

Published on: March 15, 2019 | by Ettinger Law Firm

A personal representative named in a Last Testament is allowed to be an out of state resident only if that individual is a blood relative or a relative through an existing marriage. If a representative does not satisfy this criteria, a person is still able to use an alternative to estate administration in the form of a trust. There are several important things that a person should consider when determining who should act as their personal representative.

Tip # 1 – Trust the Person that Is Chosen

The person that is selected to act as a personal representative must have the ability to complete a task accurately and efficiently. This element is important because personal representatives are given the duty of financial responsibility over a person’s estate. As a result, the person chosen to act as personal representative should have displayed the ability to be trustworthy through other examples in their life.