For most parents, leaving your children inheritances through your estate plan is a natural choice. However, if you have children who are married, or who may become married, you will need to consider the possibility that those children may get divorced. When this happens, what happens to an inheritance you leave your child? The answer depends largely on the state in which you live. Usually, inheritances that a child receives from a parent are considered separate property under the law. However, … [Read more...] about When Planning Inheritances, Think About Child Divorce
Blog
Middle Class Estate Planning
Many people who read about estate planning become convinced it’s a matter that only the rich need to think about. After all, estate tax considerations only kick in if your assets exceed the estate tax exclusion. For the rest of us, those middle-class people who can’t count themselves amongst the numbers of millionaires in the nation, is estate planning even necessary? Yes. There are a number of legal choices that only an estate plan can answer, and only you get to make those decisions. Even … [Read more...] about Middle Class Estate Planning
Two Questions about Spiritual Estate Planning
The Baby Boomers are retiring in droves and many are beginning to draft their estate plans. As they do so, many are engaging in a practice known as “spiritual estate planning.” If you have never heard of spiritual estate planning before and would like to know more, you should find the following questions and answers to be informative. What is spiritual estate planning? Spiritual estate planning is when someone decides how they want to devise their assets based upon their morals and personal … [Read more...] about Two Questions about Spiritual Estate Planning
Questions about Grandparents Serving as Guardians
When a parent cannot perform as an adequate provider for their children any longer, and the child is in danger of being submitted to the foster care system, it is often the child’s grandparent or grandparents that step up and assume the role of a guardian for their grandchild. This is not an idle undertaking and should not be trivialized. If you are considering becoming a guardian for your grandchild, or for any child, really, then the following questions and answers may be of use to you. Do … [Read more...] about Questions about Grandparents Serving as Guardians
Inheritance Laws as Old as Human Civilization
While you set about to making a last will and testament, deciding what kind of trust to establish, and making other estate planning decisions, you probably have not taken a lot of time to think about where our inheritance laws come from. But trying to figure out what should happen to a person’s property after that person dies has been an idea that humanity has tried to answer for as long as recorded history. The earliest ancient Mesopotamian civilizations had already established some quite … [Read more...] about Inheritance Laws as Old as Human Civilization
