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“Many times, people spend a great deal of time, energy and money creating an estate plan. However, the plan does not work, because their assets are not funded properly.”

Funding assets is a critical step in the estate planning process that is very frequently forgotten, as reported in The Farmer’s article “Funding assets to your estate plan.”{: target="_blank"}

Funding is the process of titling assets, so that the estate plan and the assets are aligned. Each estate plan is different. However, the funding process includes tasks such as changing ownership on accounts, establishing beneficiary designations and transfer on death desi...

“As baby boomers age, many are planning to downsize into smaller homes. However, preparing to live in a smaller space brings up a challenge: how do you get rid of all the stuff you’ve accumulated through the years.”

Maybe you always thought one of your daughters would want the silverware that you were so proud to inherit from your own mother. However, today’s millennials are not very interested in their parent’s stuff, even when it has market value. According to The Wall Street Journal’s recent article “Baby Boomers Are Downsizing and There’s A Problem: What To Do With All Their Stuff,”{: target="_blank"} it may be time ...

A New Jersey teacher left a surprisingly large gift for students in her Will with the intent of helping to pay for college.

Genevieve Via Cava taught for years as a special education teacher in Bergen County, New Jersey. She was not a particularly well-known person outside of those she taught. However, she was apparently a very frugal person and was able to amass a small fortune by saving as much money as she could and foregoing treats for herself. A longtime friend said that Via Cava even refused to get needed hearing aids because of the expense.

Via Cava passed away at the age of 89. Her frugality will pay off for future generations of...

There are many reasons that people get estate plans. However, those reasons fall into a few general categories.

People who do not have estate plans, often wonder why they should get one. People want to know what they and their family can get out of an estate plan. In large part, this depends on individual circumstances.

What assets a person has, how valuable those assets are and who they should go to after the person passes away, all make a big difference in answering why a person needs an estate plan. There is not a general answer that is truly going to be applicable to everyone.

However, there are three basic categories of reasons for...

To get the most out of Social Security benefits, it is very important that older Americans understand how the system works, before they start to get benefits. An alarming number do not.

On the surface, Social Security is a fairly simple concept to grasp. People pay into it, while they are working. When they retire, they then get paid benefits that are based on their income, when they were working. This seems simple enough. However, what the federal government does is often not that simple.

Social Security is actually a very complex system with all sorts of different rules people can use to get the most out of it. People need to...

When creating an estate plan, it is important you keep in mind the generation-skipping transfer tax.

In part, the federal estate tax is intended to make it, so wealth does not accumulate in one family indefinitely. It may be questionable how well the idea works. However, the idea is that as property passes down from succeeding generations in a family, the government will take a cut at each generation. People have often found ways around this.

One way around it, is by arranging for the inheritance to skip generations within a family. Instead of leaving property to their children, wealthy people would leave it to their grandchildren and...

Before you decide to use the forms of an online service for your legal documents, you should read the disclaimer on the website.

Some websites make it very easy to get legal documents prepared. All you do is pay a small fee, download some forms, read the directions and fill in the blanks on the form.

You can get all sorts of legal documents this way. This includes everything from starting a business to getting a will to getting divorce documents. Doing things this way, seems cheaper than going to an attorney to get the documents prepared. As a result, many people are serving as their own “lawyers” these days.

This loss of business doe...

People who inherit a lot of wealth and are not ready to deal with it, can run into a lot of problems.

Everyone is aware that it is not a good idea to let minor children inherit a lot of wealth and leave them to manage it on their own. The money would likely be wasted, and the children might then lack any motivation to go to school and get a job.

This is so obvious to people, that the law does not even allow it. If minors are left a large inheritance, the court will appoint someone to manage it on their behalf. However, many people assume that once a person matures, they are ready to handle large inheritances on their own.

Adults,...

The death of Matthew Mellon shows how a lack of planning can cause problems for an estate that contains a lot of cryptocurrency.

At the age of 21, Matthew Mellon, a member of the famous family of bankers, inherited $25 million through a trust that was created for him. Illustrating the dangers of giving that much money to someone so young, Mellon was not cautious with the money and developed a costly habit.

He recently passed away on the way to rehab, at the age of 54. If that was the entire story Mellon would be a good cautionary tale about why it is important to carefully structure large inheritances. However, there is more to the story...

It is a good idea to get organized, if you want to make things easier for your family after you pass away. Doing so is also likely to help you now.

Have you have ever needed to find a particular document and do not remember exactly where you put it? If the answer is yes, then you know how frustrating it can be to locate one piece out of a sea of documents.

For example, if you need your birth certificate and the last time you needed it you were in a rush and did not put it away in the right place, then finding it can be difficult and frustrating. People who are not fastidious about putting everything away in its proper place, end up doing...

Americans are increasingly acting as the primary caregivers for their elderly parents. This is something that they should make plans for ahead of time.

If you know you were going to have increased expenses in the future, you would be wise to plan ahead for how you will meet those expenses. This is something people do all the time. Someone who would like to buy a house, plans ahead to save the money needed for a down payment.

One future expense many Americans will face is the cost of acting as the primary caregivers for their elderly parents. Older Americans are living longer than ever before, and nursing homes continue to get more...

If you move to another state when you retire, there could be more options. Many older Americans are choosing other states to live in during their retirement years.

Traditionally, when Americans move after they retire, they choose to go to a state with a warm climate. Arizona and Florida are popular options. They have both developed the infrastructure and industries for elderly Americans to live comfortably and to get the services they need.

However, more and more retired people are choosing to move to other states. One trend is for people to move closer to their adult children, as The New York Times reports in "The New Retirement: Near...

Mothers often struggle when planning their estates. It is because they desire to provide for all of their children but come in conflict with a desire to make sure that all of their children are taken care of adequately.

Most mothers worry about their children, long after the children have grown up and moved out of the house. Wanting all their children to do well and live well, is something that never goes away. Mothers worry when anything happens that could prevent their children from living the good life.

However, most mothers also know that it is important to treat all their children equally. Showing favoritism to one child over the...

When planning for your estate, you can get bogged down in tax issues and forget about other concerns. However, it is important to remember that there are principles at stake, other than taxes.

Estate planning is not a valueless endeavor. When people start deciding how they would like their estates divided, their decisions are ultimately an expression of their values. However, sometimes during the process, people get so focused on the tax implications of estate planning that they forget about their other values.

Recently, Nightly Business Report discussed this and some important non-tax considerations in "What you don't know about estate...

It is important to make the right decisions with your estate plan, such as whether you should use a will or a trust. One decision is even more important, and it is common.

Perhaps the single greatest divide in estate planning is between those people who use a last will as their primary estate planning tool and those who use a revocable living trust instead. Choosing between using a will or a trust has a great impact on estate plans and often on what can be done with the estate plan.

Last wills must go through probate and be subjected to judicial oversight. This can be very expensive in some states. Trusts avoid probate. However, that...

It is common for elderly people to fall in love and want to get married. As part of the process, they need to make more plans than younger couples.

A common image of the elderly is to see them as past the years to fall in love. Could seniors meet someone new, fall in love and get married? In movies and on TV, elderly people who do fall in love are typically played off for laughs or presented as being under the spell of someone much younger who wants their money.

In real life, it is not unusual for seniors to meet each other, fall in love and get married. Sometimes couples meet in the nursing homes where they live. The only difference...

Now that the estate tax exemption has been doubled, some people are saying there is no longer a need for estate planning. However, estate plans have never been mostly about avoiding the estate tax.

For people who do not want to take the time to plan for their own estates, it might seem like 2018 has started out to be a good year. It has been so good that some people are talking about the death of estate planning itself, because the federal estate and gift tax exemptions have been doubled. They also think that there is no need to have plans to avoid those taxes.

However, most people who planned for their estates before this year were not...

Relatives of a former secretary were surprised to learn that she had quietly built up a fortune over the years and left most of it to charity.

Sylvia Bloom went to work at a small Wall Street law firm as a legal secretary when she was a young woman. She stayed with the firm for 67 years and retired at the age of 96. She passed away in 2016.

Bloom began working at the firm when it was common for secretaries to purchase investments for their employers. Lawyers would tell Bloom what they wanted to invest in. Her job was to make the purchase with the broker. However, Bloom also did something unusual.

She used some of her own money; she also...

When it comes to estate planning, there are several mistakes that people can make in setting up specific legal instruments. However, most mistakes people make are far more basic.

People who are looking to plan their estates, often have a lot of questions about what they should do. However, answering those questions can be like putting the cart before the horse.

Most estate planning mistakes can be avoided, if people would ask what they should not do instead. A large percentage of messy estate administration cases in probate courts would go away, if people would do that.

Market Watch recently discussed some of the things not to do in "7...

When getting an estate plan many Americans are very price conscious. However, the cheapest way to get an estate plan might not be what is needed.

Consumers typically like to pay as little as they can for something. This is a basic notion that companies, such as Amazon and Wal-Mart, have used to become behemoths in the retail industry.

Fundamentally, consumers of legal services are not much different than price-conscious Wal-Mart shoppers. People are sometimes willing to pay more for a higher quality product. However, they are still looking to pay as little as possible.

That can be a problem for people who are looking for estate planning...

Americans can expect to live longer after retiring than previous generations. However, whether they will live better, is an open question that depends on individual choices.

At first glance, Cecilia Chiang might seem like an exception. In some ways she is. The 98-year-old woman who retired in 1991, after a long and successful career in the restaurant industry, continues to be active both in her personal life and professionally consulting for other restaurant owners.

People who can still do that at her age, are now exceptions now. However, they do not have to be that exceptional in the future, as Americans continue to live longer after...

If you are a caregiver for an elderly parent, you might need to assist them in planning for their estate, if they have not already done so.

Many Americans find themselves in precarious financial situations after they retire. At some point, they are no longer able to take care of themselves physically to some degree. They also begin running out of money. Why? Retirement was more expensive than they thought.

This has led to many adult children providing care for their elderly parents. While most are willing to do so, these caregivers often find themselves having to help their parents out with unexpected matters, like estate planning.

This...

Wealthy people are beginning to expect that they will personally live to be at least 100 years old. That has important implications for their planning.

Rich people have most likely always lived longer, on average than the non-wealthy and that is certainly the case today. However, even the wealthy never really live much longer after retirement age.

Nevertheless, medical science has made tremendous strides recently. People can now expect to live much longer, if they can afford the best medical treatment. Today, half of wealthy investors expect that they will live to be 100 years old, as Forbes reports in "Are You Financially Ready To Live...

In the last few decades, women have made tremendous strides in the workplace. However, most married women still leave financial matters to their husbands. That can be a problem in their elder years.

Women today can do almost anything in their professional lives. There are very few boundaries left that women have not been able to cross.

A few decades ago, that was not the case when husbands made the money and the important financial decisions for their families. However, despite the strides women have made professionally, in most families, it is still the husband who makes all the important financial decisions.

That can lead to big...

A doctor who specializes in dementia has an idea for an advanced directive. It is designed to ensure that he does not continue working, when he is no longer able to do so, as effectively as he did when he was younger.

When we think about people who suffer from dementia, we think about people who have retired. We do not often think about the people who are still working but who have started suffering from cognitive decline. However, almost everybody has likely had an older colleague at some point, who seemed to slow down and make more mistakes in a professional setting.

This can be a problem for the older colleague, who might get...