Articles Posted in Estate Planning

In 1997, Ashley Sveen purchased a life insurance policy. Later that year, Ashley married Kaye Melin and named Melin as primary beneficiary on his life insurance policy. Sveen also named his two adult children as contingent beneficiaries. 

Several years later, Minnesota amended its revocation on divorce. Sveen and Melin divorced in 2007, but Sveen never changed the beneficiary designation on his life insurance policy. After Sveen passed away in 2001, the insurance company that held the policy requested a court make a judgment on whether Melin or Sveen’s children should receive benefits from the policy. 

The United States District Court of Minnesota then granted summary judgment for the Sveen children and awarded them life insurance proceeds. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded this decision. Subsequently, the court found that the policyholder’s ability to opt out of the law by redesignating his former wife as the beneficiary of the policy did not resolve the issue. 

By the time that the legendary screen actor and comedian Groucho Marx became a senior citizen, he had a difficult time making a number of decisions regarding his daily life. 

During this time, Marx’s companion, Erin Fleming, was accused of elder abuse and experienced a deterioration in his relationship with Marx’s children. This was made complex by Fleming’s decision to push Marx to perform. Later, after Marx became incapacitated, Fleming was appointed as guardian and temporary conservator of Marx’s valuable estate. Marx’s grandson was later named permanent conservator. 

Following Marx’s death, the fight for assets from the late legend’s estate continued on for years. A judge later resolved the debate in favor of Groucho’s children and ordered Fleming to repay a large amount that she had stolen from Marx’s bank accounts. 

Statistics show there are an increasing number of older individuals who are divorcing later on in life. There is also an increasing number of individuals who are discovering that living together as an unmarried couple has its advantages. 

According to the United States Census Bureau, the number of unmarried individuals who are older than 50 even increased by 75% between 2007 and 2016. 

Unfortunately, however, living together as an unmarried couple creates a number of unique estate planning challenges. This article reviews some of these hurdles.

The introduction of cryptocurrency has created a number of new issues, which includes how these digital assets should be addressed in a person’s estate plan. Because the Internal Revenue Service has classified cryptocurrency as property capable of being taxes, it is possible to dictate how ownership of cryptocurrency should be passed in a person’s estate plan. In many cases, however, it can prove difficult to transfer ownership of cryptocurrency without creating a potential security risk. 

The Estate Planning Challenges Presented by Cryptocurrency

A person’s ownership of cryptocurrency is represented in that individual’s virtual “wallet”, which also stores the owners’ credentials and interacts with blockchains so users can both send and receive cryptocurrency. Consequently, the person who knows the access credentials to a virtual wallet has access to any cryptocurrency that is contained in the wallet. 

The retirement process is full of challenges. One of the best ways to make sure that you navigate this process successfully is to anticipate the various obstacles that lie ahead of you. The implementation of strategies to avoid or limit the severity of obstacles that do arise should be included in a retirement plan. 

The purpose of this article is to review some of the most common mistakes that you should anticipate as you consider and begin the creation of a retirement plan. 

# 1 – Failure to Create a Strategy at All