New & Noteworthy Articles

One of the benefits of your Living Trust is that it provides a means for you to ensure that the person you trust the most will be able to step in as Successor Trustee and thereby manage your property, in the event that you become incapacitated.

There are some things that are hard to talk to our parents about.  One of those difficult topics is their estate plan (or, in many cases, the lack thereof).

It is likely that retirement accounts (your IRA or 401k) make up a substantial portion of your estate.  Thus, if you have established a Revocable Living Trust as the centerpiece of your estate plan, it is critically important that you make an informed decision regarding how you designate the beneficiary of these retirement accounts.

For most married couples, the thing that motivates them to create an estate plan is their desire to provide for “What happens when we’re both gone?” However, when counseling our married clients, we must begin by asking, “What do you want to happen if one of you dies?” 

One of the most important decisions you will face in preparing your Estate Plan is the selection of the person who will execute your estate upon your death.

For most of our clients, the focus has shifted from planning to avoid taxes and toward what is really important to them. As we approach the new year, we look forward to helping our existing clients, as well as those we will have the opportunity to work with in 2025.

For most of our estate planning clients, their general desire is to leave their estate (eventually) to their children.  That’s usually an easy decision, but it is only a starting point for what needs to be an extensive discussion. One of the biggest decisions our clients need to make is how the child will receive his or her inheritance. Essentially, there are only two ways to leave assets to a person – either outright or in trust. That being said, there are many varieties of trusts that can be designed to provide different levels of control and flexibility.  Let’s look at these options in further depth.

The term “estate planning” encompasses not only planning for your death, but also for your disability. As we all know, people are living longer and the likelihood that you will experience Alzheimer’s, dementia, diminished capacity, or other cognitive impairment before you die has increased dramatically. Thus, no estate plan is complete without taking steps to ensure that, if you become incapacitated and can’t make decisions for yourself, someone you trust will be empowered to act on your behalf.

Many things we rely on have specific expiration dates that require action on our part. Driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations, passports, credit cards, memberships all have to be renewed on or before a specific date. We are given ample warning of the specific date these things expire, so we know we have to deal with this deadline. If we miss the deadline, these things are no longer of any use.

According to recent studies, a majority (55%) of adults have not written their will. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a will. That’s because if you don’t prepare your own will, Maryland’s inheritance law does it for you. It’s called the laws of intestacy, and those laws apply to those who die without a valid will. And some significant changes to those laws went into effect on October 1, 2023.