Incapacity planning can prevent a guardianship. Although I often write about estate planning and taxes, an essential part of our practice also concerns Guardianships. A court will appoint a Guardian of a person if the court determines them to be incapacitated, or “judicially determined to lack the capacity to manage at least some of the...
Archive: 2013
Today’s crazy estate planning story comes from the New York Times, He Left a Fortune, to No One. Roman Blum died in New York last year at 97 years old. He was a Holocaust survivor and a successful real estate developer worth over $40 million. Not only did he die intestate, which means without a...
I was at a networking event today, and I was talking with a guy in his twenties — healthy, unmarried, no children, minimal assets and minimal debt. He said he wanted to talk to me about me doing a “revocable living trust” for him. When I asked him why he thought he needed one, he...
In my previous post, I discussed why a Will is essential for almost everybody, so that a person can decide how his property is disposed of upon his death, instead of having the State decide for him, per a preset list of rules. And while planning for what happens after death is a large part...
I meet people all the time — single people, married people, with and without children who have none of their estate planning documents in place. There are a number of reasons as to why people don’t get their documents in order — worry about the cost is often a reason given (although it does not...