Question 1: My partner and I have been living together for years. Does that mean we are a common-law couple?

No. Living together for a certain number of years will never automatically make you a common-law  married couple. Common-law marriage has a very specific definition in the law. In order to become a married couple through common-law, you must live in one of the 9 states that allows for this form of marriage, be at least 18 years old, agree with one another to become married, and hold yourselves out to the public as husband and wife.

Question 2: What happens if we are a common-law married couple?

If you are married through common-law that means you are a married couple. Your marriage is just as legally valid as those couples who were married by a judge or in religious ceremony. Both spouses have the right to inherit from each other when the other dies, as well have all the other rights and obligations that married couples have.

Question 3: We were married in common-law but we since got a common-law divorce. Does that mean I can no longer inherit?

No. There is no such thing as a common-law divorce. If you are married through common-law you must get an annulment or a divorce to end your marriage. Otherwise you are still a married couple and both of you will be able to inherit from one another if the other dies.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Question 1: Do I need to have my Will notarized?

No. There is no state requirement that says you must have your will signed before a licensed public notary. The law requires that for your Will to be legal, you must create a document that contains your wishes, sign it, and have it signed by two capable adult witnesses. Having your Will notarized is not a valid substitute for any of these requirements, meaning that even if you do have it notarized that doesn’t make it a legal Will.

Question 2: What about a self-proving Will?

A self-proving Will is one that is accompanied by a sworn affidavit signed and notarized by two witnesses. An affidavit is a sworn statement the witnesses make that says they are who they say they are and they witnessed the testator signing the will. These affidavits must be sworn before notary and signed in the notary’s presence. The notary must then affix the notary seal to the affidavits. However, the affidavit itself is not a Will, nor does the will have to be signed in front of the notary.

Question 3: Why should I use a self-proving Will?

In order to prove a Will is valid, a court must be convinced that the witnesses saw the testator sign the document. It can do this by having the witnesses testify in court. Also, the affidavits can serve as a substitute for witness testimony, meaning they will not have to appear in court. This makes the probate process a little easier.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Officials from the Utah Department of Health issued a statement in late March saying that Eastern European hackers had stolen the personal information of 24,000 Medicaid recipients. However, as the state continued investigating the security breach, it has continued to increase the number of affected individuals. The state is now saying that almost 900,000 Medicaid recipients have had their personal information compromised because of the breach.

The security problem happened because a server technician had apparently been using a weak password. This allowed the hackers to access 24,000 files that contained Medicaid patient personal information. Each file contained sensitive information on up to hundreds of individual patients.

Health department officials are contacting each of the affected patients with a letter. They will also offer a year of free credit monitoring to anyone who has had their Social Security number stolen.

Security experts say that there is nothing an individual person could have done to prevent this loss of information. Because the thieves stole the data from a state server, a Medicaid patient had no way to protect his or her identity. Utah Medicaid patients are urged to closely monitor their credit card statements and bank accounts for any signs of unauthorized activity. Anyone who finds such activity should contact their bank or credit card company immediately and notify them of suspected identity theft.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The lengthy legal battle over one of New York’s most well-known philanthropists and socialites has finally come to an end after the parties have reached a settlement in a New York state probate court. Though Brooke Astor died in 2007, her estate has been fought over since then and has only recently concluded. As part of the settlement, her son has accepted a slashed portion of his original $30 million inheritance.

Mr. Anthony D. Marshall, Ms. Astor’s only son, will inherit a $14.5 million from the estimated $100 million estate of the deceased philanthropist and direct descendent of the first American multimillionaire, John Jacob Astor. The rest of the funds will go to various charitable organizations, including $30 million towards the creation of the Brooke Astor Fund for New York City Education.

Though she was widely known in New York social circles and nationwide as a philanthropist, much of the drama surrounding her estate has involved her son, currently 87, and his conviction for defrauding and stealing from his mother while she was still alive. He was sentenced to three years in prison, though that conviction is still going through an appeal.

The settlement is based on Ms. Astor’s 2002 Will, and does not take into account the amendments she made in 2003 and 2004, as she was suffering from dementia.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

So you’ve gone through the trouble of creating an estate plan and are now certain that your property will pass to your family in the manner you choose. However, it’s important to realize that while your estate plan may be finished, that doesn’t mean it’s time to forget about it. If you don’t regularly review your plan you may inadvertently disinherit your family if you fail to take the proper action. Here are two tips on how to avoid these unintentional disinheritances.

Tip 1: Take survivorship property into account.

When you create a Will, the property you distribute through it does not include everything you own. Some property, such as bank accounts with rights of survivorship, will pass outside the probate process and will not be subject to the terms of your will. If, for example, you leave your spouse half of your estate through your will and you share survivorship accounts with your spouse, you effectively grant your spouse a larger than half portion of your estate.

Tip 2: Have a professional review your plan.

For people who have created their own Will or other estate planning device, it’s important that you have an estate planning lawyer review all the parts of your plan to make sure you didn’t miss anything or make any mistakes. The fact is that unless you are an expert about estate planning laws you won’t be able to be certain your plan meets all the legal requirements. Even though there are any number of websites and self-help products available, you should not rely on these as your sole source of information.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, people planning on using Medicaid for long-term care coverage are facing tougher restrictions. In most states, a person cannot be eligible for Medicaid unless he or she has no more than $2,000 worth of investments, excluding a house and a car. This $2,000 limit includes any gifts that person has given for up to five years.

With Medicaid planning you can structure your assets so you can still take advantage of the Medicaid coverage. However, doing so will require some significant planning steps on your part. Here are a couple of tips.

Tip 1: Use a trust.

Because of the timeline involved, if you want to protect your assets and still be able to receive Medicaid long-term care coverage, you will have to create a trust at least five years before you apply for Medicaid. Further, not just any old trust will do, and you must ensure you create an irrevocable living trust that provides for as many protections as possible.

Tip 2: Use insurance.

If you are not sure you will be able to qualify for Medicaid because of the five-year gift period, you can obtain long-term care insurance to cover the interim period. This insurance will cover the five-year gap so at the end of the five-year period you can apply for Medicaid.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

For many people, the idea that you would leave your children, grandchildren and other relatives out of your will is something you would never contemplate. For others, disinheritance is a much more common reality. Though there is no one answer as to why someone would choose to disinherit his or her family, there is also no law that forces you to leave property to your children and descendents. There are several well-known cases where celebrities have disinherited at least some of their family members. Let’s take a look at a few of the more well-known instances.

• Michael Jackson. After his death in 2009, it was revealed that Michael Jackson created a family trust that named his children and his mother as beneficiaries. He also appointed his mother, Catherine, as the guardian of his children. His father, brothers, and sisters, however, were completely left out of the trust and his will.

• Marlon Brando: When he died in 2004, Marlon Brando left behind a $30 million estate, as well as a grandson by his deceased daughter Cheyenne. However, Mr. Brando left none of his estate to his grandson, or to another one of his daughters. However, Mr. Brando did leave his other children at least a portion of his estate.

• Joan Crawford. The infamous subject of the film Mommy Dearest, Joan Crawford had four adopted children. After her death, she left two of these children only $77,500 each, while the other two adopted children she left nothing. She also famously included a line in her will explaining her gifts, stating she was doing so “for reasons which should be well known to them.”

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

A new study released recently analyzed the survey results of over 230,000 people and found that those receiving Medicaid have a much higher chance of visiting an emergency room over the past year than those with private insurance carriers. The study looked at data gathered by the US national health interview survey between 1999 and 2009. About 40% of Medicaid patients had visited an emergency room within the last year, while only about 18% of people with private insurance did the same.

The researchers found that people who had a significant barrier to seeing their primary care physician were more likely to visit an emergency room instead of their doctor. A significant barrier is something that hinders a person’s ability to see the doctor, such as lack of access to reliable transportation, or the inability to visit the doctor during the workday.

While anyone who had a significant barrier was more likely to visit the emergency room instead of the doctor, Medicaid patients were more likely to have both a significant barrier and an emergency room visit in the past year. People who had more than one significant barrier were even more likely to make an emergency room visit, with about 60% of Medicaid patients making an ER visit and about 29% of privately insured patients doing the same within the past year.

A contributing factor to the increased likelihood of an emergency room visit by Medicaid patients is that these patients tend to be in generally poorer health than privately insured patients.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Red Flag 1: You must act now.

Con artists often use a false time pressure in order to try to get you to agree to a deal that you otherwise would never consider. If someone is offering you a limited time offer, or tells you that you must act immediately or you will miss the opportunity of a lifetime, simply walk away. The false time pressure is a tool specifically designed to get you to not think and to give in to your instincts, which are usually wrong.

Red Flag 2: Keep it quiet.

A legitimate advisor is not in the business of keeping his or her success secret. If someone offers you a deal and tells you that you have to be secretive about it or that you must not tell your family, this is an immediate warning sign. The legitimate offer is one that will stand up in the harsh light of scrutiny, while illegitimate ones will scatter like cockroaches once you shine a light on them.

Red Flag 3: A free weekend getaway.

The use of a free item to induce you to listen to an offer is also a common trick. Be very careful about accepting offers for free meals, free weekend getaways, or similar prizes. While the prizes are real, the high-pressure sales tactics that often accompany them are also very real and can lead to disastrous outcome.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

As the drama surrounding the Huguette Clark estate continues to unfold both in the courtroom and in the media, some of the heiress’s possessions will soon be sold as part of the estate settling process. As the sole heir of copper mining magnate William Clark, Huguette died last year at the age of 104, leaving behind a $400 million fortune. Though the question remains as to who will inherit her estate, the executors responsible for managing the property are planning on selling some of her real estate and personal jewelry.

Ms. Clark had been a recluse for much of the past 70 years, spending the last several decades isolated in a New York City hospital room. Her executors discovered that Ms. Clark had an extensive personal jewelry collection that had been hidden away in a bank safety deposit box since the 1930′s. 17 pieces were found in the box, all of them in their original packaging. The most valuable, a nine-carat pink diamond ring, is very rare and estimated at a value of between $6 and $8 million, though it is expected to sell for much more at the April auction held at Christie’s.

Apart from the jewelry, the estate is also selling three New York City apartments that Ms. Clarke owned, though she had not inhabited them for decades. All three of the apartments are located in the same building that overlooks New York’s Central Park, and are listed at an asking price of $55 million.

The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.