“Digital assets” remain an unsettled area of estate planning law. While it is long-established that a person may leave physical assets, such as books or photo albums, to someone else via a will or trust, that is not necessarily the case for digital copies of the same items stored in…
It is important to make a last will and testament before your declining health renders you incapable of doing so. In a deteriorating physical or mental state, you may be subject to the undue influence of others who may wish to take control of your property for their own benefit.…
When you create a living trust, you transfer personal assets to a trustee, who then manages those assets on your behalf. In most cases, this won’t be a problem, since you can name yourself as trustee during your lifetime. But when someone else serves as trustee, he or she owes…
In making a will or trust, you should consider the possibility your chosen beneficiaries will not outlive you. It is therefore common practice to include a survivorship clause, specifying that a gift will lapse unless the recipient survives you. Some survivorship clauses require the recipient survive you by a specific…
If you have multiple children, you may wish to structure your estate plan so that each child receives an equal share of your property. Sometimes this is easier said than done-or written. If your will or trust contains conflicting or ambiguous language regarding the division of property, a probate court…
A revocable living trust is a flexible estate planning device that allows you to transfer your property to a trustee–usually yourself–thereby reducing those assets subject to a court-supervised probate after your death. Your trust document names a successor trustee to assume responsibility for the trust assets after your death. And…
A last will and testament is a document that applies only to your “probate estate.” A probate estate may not include all of your assets. In some cases, you might not even own any assets subject to probate. Probate Assets Generally, any asset titled solely in your name is a…
A power of attorney is a legal document whereby a person, known as the “principal,” grants to another person, known as the “attorney-in-fact,” the authority to act on his or her behalf in certain financial matters. The attorney-in-fact is an agent and therefore owes a fiduciary duty to the principal.…
Although you might think of an estate plan simply as a way to dispose of your existing assets, in fact your future estate might also be responsible for collecting additional income generated after your death. If you work in the entertainment industry, for example, your estate may still collect residual…
When the law speaks of “heirs,” it refers to those individuals entitled to inherit a person’s estate in the absence of a valid last will and testament. For example, if you live in California and die without a will or a spouse, but you do have children, those children are…