Writing Your Tulsa Estate Planning Blog

If you are looking to save money on your estate plan, then you might think that you should get a will since they are cheaper to get than a trust. However, trusts are actually cheaper overall.

Estate planning can be expensive for some people. Estate planning attorneys do not always come cheap and not everyone thinks they can afford to hire one.

In most cases, a will is less expensive to get than a trust. This is because trusts normally require more of the attorney’s time to draft. This leads many people to get wills to save time and money.

The problem with is that a will is more expensive overall than a trust, as the Times Herald-Record explained in “Trusts will cost you less at settlement time.”

When someone passes away, someone must then administer either the will or the trust to make sure that property is distributed as the deceased directed.

Using a will requires going to probate court and having an executor, who can charge for the service, go through the process of administering the estate.

On the other hand, using a trust means that a trustee, who can also charge for the service, is required to distribute everything.

The trustee normally does not have to go to court, which makes it a much faster process. The speed means that the trustee may charge much less overall.

In the end, the trustee may be a lot cheaper than any money that might have been saved by getting a will instead of a trust.

When getting an estate plan created, it is important to use the instruments that work best for your situation. Do not be afraid to get a trust because of the initial expense.
It just may be cheaper in the long run.

Reference: Times Herald-Record (August 2, 2017) “Trusts will cost you less at settlement time.”

You cannot merely tell your family what should be done with your assets after you pass away. You need to go through the process of getting a formal estate plan drawn up.

Many people are under the impression they do not need to get a formal estate plan, because they can rely on their family to divide up their assets after they pass away without any problems. They think if they just give family members some directions about who should get what, then the family will reliably carry out those wishes.

While we all would hope that we can rely on our families in this way, there are legal and practical reasons why it is unwise to do so and why people need to get a proper estate plan. This was discussed in a recent Fontana Herald News article titled “Having estate planning documents is very important.”

The biggest issue faced by your family if you do not make an estate plan, is that your family will not decide who gets your property. Instead, the courts get to make that decision and they do so by following statutes that determine who gets everything.

The person who the courts decide gets everything, might not choose to follow any directions you have given to distribute that property to other people. In some cases, it might be impossible for them to follow your wishes, even if they wanted to, since they could face negative tax consequences.

If you can take the time to tell your family how you want your property divided up, then you can take the time to get a formal estate plan that will actually carry out your wishes.

Reference: Fontana Herald News (August 7, 2017) “Having estate planning documents is very important.”

How to fairly divide an estate between multiple children, can be a difficult question to answer. It can get even more difficult, when the family is not a traditional one.

When people get remarried and they have children from a previous relationship, then their estate planning can get pretty complicated.

Consider for example, a man who has two homes and two daughters from a previous relationship getting remarried. This man decides to create a trust that leaves one of his homes to his two daughters, since that is the house in which they grew up in. The other home will go to his new wife.

That seems like an equitable solution.

However, the man and his new wife, then had a son and they also purchased a third home.
Now, the question becomes how do they make sure that all of the man’s children are treated equally?

If any inheritance the new wife receives will eventually go to her son and he also receives a portion of his father’s estate, then he will receive a larger inheritance than his step-sisters.

How to resolve this situation was the subject of a recent letter to Market Watch as reported in “How do I split my estate between my two stepdaughters and biological son?”

There is no single perfect solution to this situation that will work in all cases.

It depends on how much the woman brought into the marriage and how old her step-daughters were at the time.

What will work for one family, will not work for another.

If the women brought few assets into the marriage, then the fair thing to do might be to give her a life estate in the property, but then divide that property up equally between all three children when she passes away.

If you have a blended family, then visit an estate planning attorney to learn about the options to deal with this type of situation for your family.

Reference: Market Watch (August 8, 2017) “How do I split my estate between my two stepdaughters and biological son?”

If you do not continuously update your estate plan, then it will not be as effective as you want it to be.

After people get an estate plan, the last thing many of them want to do again, is to go back to the estate planning attorney and make changes.

It can be expensive to do so and it takes time away from other things. It also forces people to think again about their own deaths.

This leads people to think that if they have already gotten an estate plan, then at least they have something. They believe that they do not need to make regular changes, since they will always have time when they are older to change their plans to account for everything that has changed since they first got estate plans.

However, that is a bad idea as Market Watch reports in “There’s no time like the present to update your estate plan.”

The biggest issue is that you might not have as much time to update your estate plan as you think. Even the most cautious person with the healthiest habits in the world, can never know what might happen to him.

You do not have time to wait to update your estate plan to take changing circumstances into account. It is important to make changes to your estate plan, when those changes first become necessary.

If you do not continuously update your estate plan, then you risk leaving your family in a bad position when you pass away. They are the ones who will have to deal with anything that might have made sense once, but that no longer does.

Reference: Market Watch (August 7, 2017) “There’s no time like the present to update your estate plan.”

A pet cemetery and crematory in Illinois is accused of giving pet owners the ashes of animals that are not their own.

While a local animal rescue volunteer was searching for a missing dog at an Illinois pet cemetery and crematorium that also had an attached animal shelter, he noticed a smell coming from a refrigerator on the property. The closer the volunteer got to the refrigerator, the more overpowering that the smell became.

Upon opening the door, the volunteer discovered the bodies of three dead animals.

One of the animals was a cat that had been implanted with a microchip.

The data on the microchip was read by local authorities and it was discovered that the cat belonged to a family, whose pet had died three years previously.

That family had been given the ashes of a different animal already, according to the Daily Mail in “Pet cemetery is accused of giving the ashes of random animals to grieving owners after dozens of decomposing carcasses were found in a freezer.”

It is not clear why the family was given the incorrect ashes or why the cat was never cremated at all.

Unfortunately, the owner of the cemetery committed suicide shortly after the police started their investigation. Therefore, the answers as to why may never be known.

If the owner thought he could avoid any problems by taking his own life, then he was wrong.

It is still possible that his estate could be sued and his family will have to be the ones to face legal consequences, instead of him.

Reference: Daily Mail (July 30, 2017) “Pet cemetery is accused of giving the ashes of random animals to grieving owners after dozens of decomposing carcasses were found in a freezer.”

More senior citizens are divorcing their spouses than in previous generations. That leads to some estate planning complications.

It used to be that once people entered retirement age, it was extremely rare for them to seek a divorce. That is no longer the case.

Elderly people are getting divorced today at an increasing rate. These so called “gray divorces”, can present unique legal challenges.

They can be difficult enough for divorce attorneys who must sort through and divide a lifetime’s worth of accumulated marital property. However, they also present challenges in estate planning.

The Indiana Lawyer recently discussed these problems in “Rise in divorces among older couples presents unique family law issues.”

The big issue in estate planning is that plans are often already in place for the couple’s estates.

These plans are normally drafted in unison with the understanding that when the first spouse passes away, the surviving spouse will receive the bulk of the estate. When the second spouse passes away, then the estate will go to the agreed upon heirs.

These plans need to be undone when the couple divorces. This can be difficult to do, unless estate planning attorneys are hired who have the expertise to wrap up legal entities that are no longer needed and might be a hindrance.

There are many difficulties associated with gray divorces and you may want to try to reconcile.

Be sure to consult with an estate planning attorney who can explain these difficulties to you, sooner rather than later.

Reference: Indiana Lawyer (July 26, 2017) “Rise in divorces among older couples presents unique family law issues.”

Arranging your assets so that you will qualify for Medicaid, should you ever need to stay in a nursing home for long-term care is possible. However, many people question the ethics of doing so.

Medicaid often does not get a lot of attention, despite its importance. However, with some in Congress looking to make cuts to it as a way to reduce spending and taxes, Medicaid is back in the news on a regular basis.

One of the things the program does, is pay for long-term care in nursing homes for those elderly people who cannot afford their own care.

That part of the program is under fire because some people essentially hide their assets to make it look like they cannot afford their own nursing home bills, so that Medicaid will pick up the tab.

Recently, The New York Times looked at the debate over the ethics of doing that in “The Ethics of Adjusting Your Assets to Qualify for Medicaid.”

On one side of the debate are people who point out that those who can plan for Medicaid are wealthy enough to hire attorneys. Therefore, they should not hide assets to take advantage of a program designed to help the poor.

On the other side, people point out that nursing home care is extremely expensive. They believe that it is not fair for people to have to exhaust all of their assets, leaving nothing for their children to inherit, in order to have some of that care paid for by a program they fund with their taxes.

Whichever side you are on, it is important to know that if you do want to plan for Medicaid, then you need to see an elder law attorney about doing so and you need to do that long before you will ever need nursing home care.

Reference: New York Times (July 21, 2017) “The Ethics of Adjusting Your Assets to Qualify for Medicaid.”

Before you go on a vacation in a foreign country, you should make plans to see an estate planning attorney.

Going on your first vacation to a foreign country can be an exciting experience. You will see all sorts of things you cannot find in the U.S.

If you are about to undertake such a visit, you have probably made all sorts of plans about what you want to see at your destination of choice. You might have even purchased new clothing, luggage, cameras and other things to take on your trip.

There is one more thing that you need to plan for that you might not have considered.
You need to plan for the worst case scenario and visit an estate planning attorney as the Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog discusses in “So You’re Going on a Trip.”

In all likelihood, nothing bad will happen to you while you are in a foreign country.

The odds are in your favor.

However, the world can be a dangerous place and it is important to make sure you have your general affairs in order, just in case.

At a minimum, you will want to get a general durable power of attorney and a health care power of attorney, so if you are injured or get sick on your trip someone else has the legal authority to handle your day to day needs.

It is also a good idea to get a full estate plan, so your family is taken care of, just in case the worst happens.

You should not be afraid to go to a foreign country on vacation, but you should prepare as if you are.

Visit an estate planning attorney.

Reference: Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (July 31, 2017) “So You’re Going on a Trip.”

You can create a will by purchasing a form online and filing it out. However, it makes no sense to do so.

One of the biggest questions people have about estate planning today, is whether they should use one of the several online legal document services.

These services allow people to purchase forms they can download and fill out for themselves that purport to be legal documents. Many people have made their own wills this way.

The problem is that there is no actual advantage to creating a will this way, as MoneySense pointed out in “Danger of DIY Wills.”

The one advantage people think these online wills have is that they are cheaper than going to an estate planning attorney. However, that is not really the case.

It is true that you might be able to save a few hundred dollars now by doing things yourself. If there are any problems with the documents you purchased after you pass away, then your estate is going to pay a lot more money to attorneys to sort out the problems than you might save now.

There are almost always problems with form wills.

The source of the problems is always the same.

You are not an expert.

You might think you know what the best legal options are for your estate, but you are almost certainly wrong.

Do not be offended by that.

Unless you happen to be a surgeon, you do not know how to take out your own appendix either.

Estate planning requires expertise every bit as much as surgery.

Reference: MoneySense (July 14, 2017) “Danger of DIY Wills.”

Estate planning and retirement planning are not separate things. If they are done properly, you will do both at the same time.

People often think of retirement planning as saving for their own financial needs, when they are no longer working. They also think of estate planning as something different, simply planning to distribute whatever is left over when they die.

While things can be done that way, it is better to think of the two things at once, so your plans complement each other.

If your estate planning attorney and financial advisor work together, then both your retirement and estate plans will work better for you.

You will have a comprehensive plan, as TD Ameritrade discusses in “Estate Planning: Build Up, Draw Down, Distribute Balance.”

A comprehensive plan helps determine how you are going to build up your account balances to have more than enough money for your retirement. It also makes sure your assets are held in the best possible way for your future estate.

The plan takes into consideration how you will draw your assets down during retirement to make sure you leave something for your heirs, if that is your decision.

Finally, the plan determines the best way for you to pass the remainder on to your heirs.

If you do things properly, then you will have enough for your needs and your heirs will have plenty after you pass away.

If you would like to get a comprehensive estate plan, then talk to an estate planning attorney about how to make sure your retirement plans complement your estate plan.

Reference: TD Ameritrade (July 19, 2017) “Estate Planning: Build Up, Draw Down, Distribute Balance.”