Category: Estate Planning

 

As a dedicated estate planning and asset protection planning law firm in NJ, we frequently credit our clients with the longstanding reputation we have earned in the area. We know that your planning needs are important to you and it’s always been our goal as a firm to meet and exceed your expectations. Whether we’ve just met you or have been working with you for years, it’s our mission to serve you personally and help to suggest strategies and tactics most aligned with your individual needs.

 

That’s why we are so thrilled to have been named as one of the 10 Best in the Estate Planning Division by the American Institute of Legal Counsel. While the long relationships we have with our clients, the referrals to others, and the thanks we receive from clients like you are our favorite part of business, being awarded from an outside party also carries its own excitement. We hope to continue to serve you and your families with the same compassion and vigor we’ve come to be known for since founding this office.

 

It’s truly a privilege to get to work with all of our wonderful clients in New Jersey and we hope to continue to be part of your estate planning process for many years to come. Thank you for making what we do so enjoyable!

You have probably spent a fair amount of time accumulating things in your life. A home, a vehicle, books, music, photos, family collections and heirlooms and even antiques. When you put together your estate plan, you’ll articulate a plan for all these items.

It’s just as important, however, to have a plan for your digital assets. If you’re backing all your photos up to the cloud, for example, would your loved ones be able to access those precious pictures? According to a statistics company, there are nearly 2 billion users on Facebook alone. Amazon has 310 million users. Online accounts, digital assets, and profiles are becoming increasingly popular, but it’s a common oversight to forget about planning for these. 

Thankfully, working with an experienced estate planning lawyer can help you determine how to protect all of the assets in your life, digital or not. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting about all the valuable things you own. It might not be easy to remember these, but there is sentimental value attached to online accounts. Likewise, you may have specific issues about how you want these accounts handled after you pass away. With your estate planning attorney, you can accomplish all of your goals.

 

 

One of the most common reason for someone to set up a meeting with an estate planning attorney is due to the birth of a new child. This should not, however, be the last time you set aside time to meet with a lawyer. Active parenting involves helping your children achieve their goals, but you should also be thinking about how your own planning opportunities can address your child’s needs.

Aside from wills, which allow you to stipulate what happens to your property and to name a guardian for your minor children, you may also want to consider using a trust, which empowers you to have some control over the distribution of property. You may also gain some privacy benefits from using a trust.

You need a formal plan to help address your long-term goals and this can be an important part of thoughtful parenting. As a new parent, it can be challenging to think about the future in which you may not be around, but doing this planning now can help avoid problems down the road. In an ideal world, you will not need to worry about the guardian named for your child. However, it can give you a lot of peace of mind knowing that someone has been tapped to play a critical role in your child’s life just in case.

Contact your experienced estate planning attorney in NJif you have questions about how the process works and how you can benefit.

Was the last time you took a look at your estate plan when your kids were born? Perhaps when you got your first mortgage and began to accumulate the assets which would ultimately become a part of your estate.

By now, though, those children may be adults. If it’s been quite some time, those children may even have children of their own. It’s especially important to update your comprehensive estate plan if the only document inside yours presently is a basic will. 

As life evolves, your estate plan may get more complex. You may need to determine different strategies to help with your overall goals and as your intended beneficiaries change. Often, it’s these older documents from decades ago that may raise questions about validity in court.

Estate planning doesn’t have to be difficult. Instead, you can benefit from an annual meeting with your estate planning lawyer to walk through whether your plans are still helping you meet your intended goals. Your lawyer can help you evaluate current plans and suggest new strategies for accomplishing your wishes.

Set up a meeting today to learn more about why you need to update your plan and to ensure that you have something that works for you for years to come.

There are three major benefits to getting your estate planning done in a timely manner that are not often talked about. Read on to learn more. 

Achieving Your Goals

A living trust gives you some flexibility to accomplish your goals and have some say over how the situation unfolds. A living trust, for example, allows you to include clauses about condition under which a person can receive access to assets. You might allow that someone gets assets after they complete their education.

Take Advantage of Best Decision Opportunities

It is a lawyer’s duty to walk the client through all the available options and determine the most appropriate strategy for you. One size does not fit all in terms of estate planning and your lawyer can help recommend what’s best for you.

Focusing on Growth

The best strategy for ensuring that your property is managed by capable individuals is to use a trust and select the right person to serve in the role of trustee. With your living trust, you can select someone to determine management tips in the event that you are unavailable.

If you’re ready to start the process of getting the maximum benefits from estate planning, contact a New Jersey lawyer today.

Both estate planners and financial advisors work with a broad range of clients. Elderly and aging clients, however, can present unique challenges in the event that mental competency is an issue. One of the greatest challenges for individuals in this situation is in having loved ones contest the validity of a will or other estate planning documents after the loved one has passed away as a result of this reduced mental competency.

There are three critical questions that need to be answered when putting together an estate plan for someone who has competency issues. These include:

• Do clients generally know what their assets are?
• Do the clients easily recognize the names of close family members?
• Is the client capable of creating a plan to distribute those assets?

Meeting these three basic criteria for competency can still be challenging as a family member trying to help a loved one put together his or her estate planning. Partnering with an experienced New Jersey estate planning attorney who is knowledgeable about these issues and can help advise you and answer questions throughout the process is strongly recommended. While it is ideal to have estate planning documents put together before someone’s mental competency or cognitive disorders affect them severely, speaking with an attorneyis always recommended.

                                                                                                                                                                                           

There’s a good chance you have some opinions one way or another about what you want to do with your estate planning, but this should still be discussed with your estate planning attorney in New Jersey. Finding a qualified attorney is very valuable for ensuring that you get all your questions answered promptly. 

Looking for a qualified attorney in your local area allows you to form a relationship with this professional and to continue to meet with him or her on an ongoing basis. One way to identify the right attorney is to ask friends or colleagues for referrals. If you have unique situations that might influence how your planning unfolds, you need to discuss this with your lawyer. Small business owners, parents of children with special needs, and blended families will all have their specialized needs that should be addressed by a lawyer.

Make sure you set up an initial consultation and ask pertinent questions about the attorney’s experience. Some of the recommended questions to ask include:

• How long have you been practicing?
• How many clients have you helped?
• What proportion of your practice is devoted to estates?
• How do you charge for your services?
• Do you have experience with my individual concerns?
• Do you help clients with tax planning?

If you’re ready to hire an experienced lawyer to help with your estate planning, contact a New Jersey estate planning attorney today.

Everyone has three primary types of capital in their estate – legacy capital which will be passed on to heirs, social capital which goes to society, and personal capital which supports a lifestyle. For the majority of individuals doing their estate planning, their social capital would go to the IRS and the US government is then responsible for determining how it is used.

Many people are under the impression that if they leave money to a charity when they pass away that it will minimize their family’s inheritance. However, if you work with an experienced estate planning attorney, you can incorporate philanthropy in your estate planning and in many cases, redirect money that might currently be directed to the IRS due to lack of planning back to your family and charities that you care about.

Advanced planning can be extremely valuable in this situation because the timing of a charitable bequest can make a big difference for everyone involved. Consulting with your estate planning attorney about the charities that you intend to support is strongly recommended.

Think carefully about the best interests of your beneficiaries when putting together comprehensive plans. You need to think carefully about their own ability to manage the information and the best way to pass it on to them. This is a highly personal decision and one that can be filled with emotions, particularly if you have loved ones who expect that you’re giving them a particular piece of property. Having this conversation can be difficult if you have changed your mind, but it’s a good idea to meet directly with an estate planning attorney to talk through options. There are many strategies and concepts for passing along assets to someone else that you should be aware of and consider incorporating into your plan. 

Although it might be tempting to leave property and assets outright to your loved ones in your will, this is often not the best strategy, particularly since your will is subject to probate and can become a matter of public record. It can also be more problematic for your loved ones if there is no control on your end exercised over how the assets are distributed.

Many adult children may struggle with the sudden influx of money in the form of an inheritance, but a trust can add an additional layer of control to ensure that a spendthrift child is protected from himself or herself. Speaking with an experienced estate planning attorney is the best way to determine how to appropriately protect loved ones while also leaving behind a meaningful legacy for them as well. Consulting with an attorney can help to identify some of the strengths and weaknesses in your current estate plan and provide you a road map of where to go from there.

 

Most people think of estate planning as being attached to their own mortality so they put the process off for as long as possible. How and when your death might happen is something that you have no control over, but you do have a significant amount of control over how you plan ahead for the future. 

Estate planning is not just about determining what happens to your assets after you pass away. It is a process that also involves careful consideration of important decisions to be made throughout your life.

These are the major reasons why individuals choose to use a power of attorney. It’s also a misconception that only individuals with a high net worth need estate planning. This causes far too many people, who may otherwise benefit from estate planning, to avoid the process altogether and compromise their interests. If you have a family that is dependent on your income, it is essential to plan ahead with proper strategies and tactics so as to protect your loved ones. It is never too early to start the process of estate planning.

The sooner you begin to outline your intentions for your family as well as what will happen to your property after you pass away, the more confident you will be about the future. Planning now also allows you to amend your plans down the road as well as life circumstances change, but it is important to take the first step to protect yourself.

It is becoming more common for couples to cohabitate and live together as if they are married but it is important to understand that you do not necessarily get the protections of marriage just by living together.

 

As many people already know, when two individuals get married, they get certain statutory rights to one another’s estates. As these rights are statutory they are automatically attached as spouses. If a married couple doesn’t wish to have these rights they can be limited by using a post-nuptial or pre-nuptial agreement. However, couples that are living together but are not married must have to plan in order to leave one another property.

 

In addition to handling questions over property, don’t forget about healthcare representative and power of attorney appointments. If two individuals want to be involved with one another’s healthcare decisions and finances over your lifetimes, you need to create this authority by meeting with an experienced estate planning attorney. This is the best way to protect your interests and to ensure that you have covered all of your bases.
Bear in mind that couples that have been together for some time but who are not married do not have the same protections as married couples and therefore must take additional steps to guard themselves.

It should go without saying that advanced planning for asset protection can have significantly more benefits than trying to address a problem after it has already arisen. 

Planning years ahead of a problem will have the best possible outcome in the event that a threat does arise. This means that if trouble does happen you will be protected but that you also have the peace of mind that you have a plan in place in the event that a threat does emerge.

After a problem or claim does come to fruition, you might be considered guilty if you scramble to protect your assets. You could also be accused of a fraudulent transfer or even worse. It may also be too late to address problems if you attempt to wait until a problem has happened.

Asset protection planning after a problem or claim arises can backfire significantly. It is essential to speak to an asset protection planning attorney as soon as possible to protect your assets now and not wait until it is too late or well into the future. Do not hesitate to reach out to an experienced asset protection planning attorney to learn more.

                                                                                                                            

Estate planning attorneys often receive questions about what a living will is. Many people are under the assumption that a basic will or a simple will is the same as a living will. Usually, a living will is an important component of an individual’s estate plan. You may need to consider multiple tools and strategies when conducting your estate planning.  

It can help decision makers by telling those individuals about the wishes of the person who has created the living will. A living will allows you to specify how you would like to be cared for should you become incapacitated or critically ill and unable to make decisions on your own.

Living wills may be frequently confused with regular wills but living wills are more limited in scope. This is because they include stipulations about who and how these individuals can make medical decisions for you in the event that you are unable to do so.

This is why sometimes you will hear a living will referred to as an advanced healthcare directive. To learn more about whether you need a living will and how it can benefit your estate planning toolkit, set up a meeting with an experienced New Jersey estate planning attorney today.

 

One of the primary reasons that most individuals consider putting together a will is because they have personal property they would like to bequeath to future beneficiaries. Unfortunately, this is not an easily done process unless you have the expertise of an estate planning attorney. 

The advent of do-it-yourself forms on the internet makes it tempting to seem as though you can accomplish this quickly in an hour or less but doing so could actually create further confusion for your loved ones and may even lead to your will being ruled invalid in future court hearings.

That’s why it’s better to take the time to set up an appointment with an estate planning attorney. When it comes to your personal property, one of the biggest challenges is frequently that you might change your mind. People might also choose to give away property during their lifetime that is outlined in the will, raising confusion and arguments between siblings or family members who may believe it was their right to have access.

One of the most successful ways to handle personal property is to put together a personal property distribution letter in the will. A personal property distribution letter allows clients to change their minds or to update a distribution list whenever they choose to without having to set up an additional meeting with an attorney. The will should also include a provision that if the beneficiaries are unable to agree on personal property distribution within five months of the loved one’s death, then the personal representative will step in to sell the property and split the cash. In many cases, this is enough to encourage compliance and working together. Meeting with an attorney to accomplish the process of personal property distribution through a will can be extremely valuable.

The IRS may face challenges as they work to finalize newly proposed regulations about curbing particular gift tax and estate planning tactics according to practitioners in the field. Those proposed regulations were issued on August 2nd and place limitations on using valuation discounts that minimize the overall value of assets inside a family owned business. This might have the effect of lowering a decedent’s gift tax and estate tax liability at the time of death.

Practitioners, however, believe that taxpayers as well as their advisors are planning to bring up multiple arguments against the IRS rules at a hearing scheduled in early December. The majority of this discussion is expected to revolve around whether or not the IRS has overstepped their bounds by issuing these regulations. If the rules are finalized as is, that question could be answered in U.S. tax court.

According to one expert, one of the primary reasons to question whether the IRS and the treasury department have overstepped their authority, is to look beyond the Obama administration’s budget proposals. If you have questions about how potential changes in the laws could impact you and your estate planning, set up a consultation with an experienced attorney today to learn more.

Although it’s not yet clear how this issue will proceed, it’s smart to plan ahead and speak to an attorney knowledgeable about advanced estate planning issues now. A New Jersey estate planning attorney can help you determine how these issues will impact you now and in the future, should the changes be accepted.

Along with the surge in gray divorce or increasing numbers of individuals above age 50 and 65 who are getting divorced, it’s important to think carefully about planning ahead for estate planning as you get remarried.

 

Some of the most pertinent issues include:

• Children from a previous relationship
• Family harmony and balance in general
• Financial security for your surviving spouse
• Assets that are inherited or acquired during the second marriage
• Assets that you own and are bringing into the relationship

Some of the most important steps you can follow with your new spouse include:

• Discussing finances
• Evaluating previous commitments
• Considering whether a prenuptial or post-nuptial agreement could help you
• Reviewing your estate planning documents
• Carefully considering how children from prior relationship will be influenced with any new estate planning documents

It’s important to consult with a knowledgeable attorney who has handled complex estate planning issues before. Having an attorney who is committed to finding the best possible strategies and documents for you is critical for your success.

Any number of news stories about celebrity estates highlight just how much confusion can be generated when you skip estate planning. The woes of skipping a will, however, are not only reserved for the rich and famous. Skipping a will can cause problems for your beneficiaries by making things more difficult than necessary. It’s worth the appointment with your estate planning attorney. According to a recent survey shared by Google, two-thirds of adults in the U.S. don’t have a will at all. A further nine percent have an out-of-date will. Having a will with old information can be just as frustrating for your loved ones, as it could mean that your old intentions are carried out instead and that you spark arguments between family members. 

 

The survey also discovered good news as far as a person’s age and his or her likelihood to have a will. Sadly, however, individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 mostly did not have a will: more than 80 percent of respondents in that age range did not have plans for their belongings if something were to happen to them. It’s a myth to believe that you don’t need a will if you’re younger or have a modest-sized estate. Meeting with an estate planning attorney to discuss your goals and articulate your plans is something you should begin early on.

One other interesting fact from this study was that the income category least likely to have an updated will were those individuals earning more than $100,000 per year. With more income and assets come great responsibility. Putting your family through the additional stress of letting the court decide what happens to your belonging is unnecessary and frustrating for them. It can also add delays to the processing of your estate.

Contact a New Jersey estate planning attorney today if you’re ready to begin talking about putting together a will. It’s worth the time and effort and will give you a lot of peace of mind about the future.

One of the most beneficial steps you can take in your estate planning process is to put together a living trust. This helps to avoid the probate process entirely, eliminates court control, unnecessary taxes and helps to retain your privacy. Many different kinds of trusts are available for people across the U.S., but you should have a conversation with your estate planning attorney about what tools are recommended for your situation. 

A living trust can be controlled entirely by family members and can be resolved in a matter of weeks. This is just one of the benefits of using a living trust. This is especially important after a loved one passes away, since there is already a high level of stress and the challenges of coping with the emotions of a lost loved one.

The average time for the probate process in states across the U.S. is between 9 months to 2 years, which can add to your loved one’s frustration and make things difficult for them in the interim. The probate process is also a very public domain, so anyone who has the interest can go to the courthouse to identify your estate’s value and to determine how it was distributed. If you value privacy, then this is a valuable tool to use.

Contact a New Jersey estate planning attorney if you’re thinking about how a living trust can help you.

 

If you are preparing to ship your new college student off to campus in the fall, it can be challenging to help him or her in a medical emergency if you don’t have the right estate planning tools to do so.

Many adult parents are still paying for services like car insurance premiums and health insurance when their younger children go off to college, but the adult child turning 18 can present numerous problems. For example, if you attempted to call the doctor’s office near campus to pay your son or daughter’s medical bill, they might not even speak to you, let alone pay it.

Many parents are unfortunately unaware of what happens in the medical world when their child turns 18 and without the proper estate planning documents they may be very confused and frustrated. As a child’s parents, you have no more legal right to your son or daughter’s medical information than you would to a stranger’s. This is partly due to the fact that federal legislation in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 put into place. HIPAA was designed to protect confidentiality of any person’s health information.

When your child turns 18, he or she is legally classified as an adult. In the event of a medical emergency though, this can present serious problems. Having a HIPAA release can be very beneficial for planning purposes. You may also wish to talk to your son or daughter about having a financial or healthcare power of attorney to help protect them in the event that something goes amiss. Contact a New Jersey estate planning attorney today to learn more.