Estate Planning

If charitable giving has been an important part of your life, you may want this to continue once you are gone. There are numerous estate planning tools that account for charitable giving.  Outlined below are some legal strategies to make charitable giving a part of...

The Great Wealth Transfer is a financial process that has already begun and will continue over the next two decades. During this time, it is estimated that approximately $84 trillion in assets will be passed down to younger generations. Much of this wealth will come...

Creating an estate plan can be an extensive yet rewarding process. You can use an estate plan to dictate how you wish your assets to be managed after you pass away. Many people believe that asset distribution is the only purpose of an estate plan. However, there is...

It’s very common to want to include minors in your estate plan. Perhaps you’re writing a will in your 60s, for example, and you have grandchildren who are under the age of 18. You want to leave financial assets to these grandchildren, but you know you might pass away...

When you die, it probably won’t be the house, the car or your bank account that starts disputes between your loved ones. It’s more likely to be your favorite quilt, your fancy teapot or some other personal item that has a lot of emotional significance for those you...

Estate planning is not as common as many people assume. In fact, the average American simply does not have an estate plan right now. The percentages are always shifting, but roughly two-thirds of people in the United States admit that they haven’t written a will. Are...

Many people regard estate planning as deeply personal and not the sort of thing they want to discuss with others. Yet it is probably better to have some discussions about yours, albeit without you needing to reveal every last detail. Here are a few people you might...

Leaving money to a beneficiary in a trust is much different than leaving it to them directly. If you give someone $20,000 in your will, they may just get a check from the estate executor. But if you put the $20,000 in a trust, that fund holds the assets on behalf of...

Estate planning can be a delicate process that involves setting guidelines to help ensure that beneficiaries follow your wishes without any deviations. One tool you can leverage to help ensure that probate administration is a smooth and relatively seamless process for...

Your estate plan is a personalized set of instructions that tells your loved ones what to do when you pass away. It can also include information about your affairs if you become incapacitated.  Because of the nature of this plan, it shouldn’t ever be considered a...