A quick Google search inquiring about the probate process will turn up a wide variety of results. Some estate planning attorneys will tell you to avoid it at all costs – raising concerns about privacy, time, cost, and individuals contesting the estate. Other sites will tell you there’s nothing to worry about as long as you properly establish and meticulously detail your estate plan. All of this noise and, in some Read More

As parents, watching our children grow into adults and start their own relationships can be scary. We believe in our efforts to guide them in the right direction and trust them to build their own lives and their own families. Sometimes, the person they chose to marry may not have been your choice. We want to provide for our heirs financially and many of us want to make sure our assets stay within the family and are Read More

Cryptocurrency and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have become popular hobbies and investing tools in recent years. Both of these have been around for much longer than the general public has been aware of them, but there are still serious questions about how they should be handled in an estate plan. These are both considered digital assets, which we talked about last month, but they require unique considerations in order Read More

Modern technology has changed estate planning forever. We hear from clients who are concerned about what will happen to their digital assets and data when they die. After all, much of our lives are spent and stored online today. Your estate plan will need to account for these assets similar to the way other assets are handled but, in some cases, there are other ways to transition those assets, as well. It ultimately Read More

Each New Year presents us all with opportunities to take a moment and look at areas of our lives that we can improve upon. New Years’ Resolutions give us hope that the person we are on December 31, 2023, is better than the person we are today. Of course, most resolutions focus on improving ourselves. But, what if we added some resolutions to this list that bring us peace of mind while planning for the future? Estate Read More

So you already have an estate plan in place, that’s good.  In the majority ofcases, an estate plan will need to be updated over the course of a person'slifetime.  It's time for an update if your estate plan no longer meets yourneeds or expresses your wishes accurately.Here are some common reasons for updating your plan:  There has been a birth, death, or marriage of a beneficiary. Your children grow up and are now Read More

You don’t need to have a summer house in the Hamptons, expensive cars and art to consider yourself the owner of an estate. If you own anything, you have “estate” as far as the law is concerned.  An “Estate” makes on think of expansive country properties, expensive cars, or other symbols of high wealth but for the purposes of estate planning law, the term “estate” covers a whole lot more. What constitutes as an Read More

Estate Planning - Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones Everyone has all been affected by the coronavirus in some way, even if completely healthy. You may feel like your circumstances are spinning out of control but you are not powerless. There are steps you can take now to protect yourself and your family both physically and financially. First, we you can do your part to prevent the spread of the virus by being Read More

A payable-on-death account, also called a POD account, is a common way to keep bank and investment accounts out of probate, the court-supervised process that oversees distributing a deceased person’s property. Most people want to avoid their estate going through probate because their heirs will receive the inheritance faster, privately, and at lower cost. Is a POD account an appropriate solution for your needs? Read More

Every day we make hundreds of decisions from what to eat for breakfast to where we go on vacation. With each passing day, there are more choices to be made. But, what will happen if you can’t make decisions for yourself? Before that time comes, there is one important decision you need to make. Who do you want to serve as your guardian? For those of you who have had your estate planning recently done or reviewed, Read More