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Estate planning can be a very difficult process. While it’s not brain surgery, making the decision to move forward with the planning requires us to face the fact that we will not live forever. This thought can stop many people right in their tracks. Others talk themselves out of seeing a qualified attorney to put together an estate plan based on some of the following common myths:

I actually never get asked this question, sadly. This is because people that age are immortal, invincible and made of rubber, or so they believe.

This is so sad when it happens. It is a question that comes up a lot in online ask-a-lawyer forums. The question goes something like this: "My boyfriend owns the condo in which we have been living together for the past ten years. What happens if he dies? Will I have to move?"

If you get Social Security disability or retirement benefits and you get married again, there are four ways in which remarriage may affect your benefits:

Some people have been known to take a perfectly good attorney-prepared estate plan and tinker with it on their own. A classic example is crossing out names and writing in different names by hand. Another example is crossing out a bequest, either because the testator has changed his mind about giving it to a particular person or he no longer owns the item.

In order of priority, this mistake really ranks #2 behind DIY Mistake #1: Not Having An Estate Plan, but I had already posted mistakes 2 through 6, so this is going to have to be #7.  Human beings tend to procrastinate when a task they KNOW they need to do seems overwhelming or too expensive or ...

A nonprobate device to transfer residential real property to a named beneficiary upon the owner’s death. Like a will, no consideration is required and the beneficiary’s acceptance is not required. Capacity to contract is required. TODs are revocable by recording a revocation, recording an absolute conveyance, or recording a subsequent TOD deed.

A reverse mortgage, also known as a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM), is a type of loan that allows older homeowners (62 or older) to convert part of the equity in their homes into tax-free income. Reverse mortgages are wonderful financial tools for certain individuals; however, it is a very important financial decision. If you are considering a reverse mortgage the first step is to talk with a reverse mortgage counselor.

A case involving basketball star Caldwell Jones demonstrates the danger in having only one spouse's name on a reverse mortgage. A federal appeals court ruled that an insurance company may foreclose on a reverse mortgage after the death of the borrower, Mr. Jones, even though Mr. Jones’ widow is still living in the house. While there are protections in place for non-borrowing spouses, many spouses are still facing foreclosure and eviction.

A typical DIY estate plan relies heavily on non-probate transfers such as joint tenancy and beneficiary designations.  Anything not transferred pursuant to non-probate transfers goes through probate under the laws of intestate succession or pursuant to a simple will. All such transfers result in...

I alluded to this mistake in an earlier post, but it really deserves it own article. Many DIY-ers unwittingly get into trouble due to their ignorance regarding the interplay between various estate planning techniques.  This is another topic that is best explained using examples. Example 1:  Wif...

This particular one shares one unique characteristic in that it is a mistake that can and often is also made by people who have paid good money for a well-constructed estate plan! Ugh!

Plenty of my clients use these techniques in addition to their will and their trust(s). They have their place in estate planning as long is the choice is made in an intentional, conscious, educated, and informed manner. The problem is too many people don't think it all the way through, if they think about it at all, usually because they are not aware that they SHOULD think it through better. They don't know what the alternatives are or what questions they should be asking.

Here is DIY estate planning mistake #1: Putting the names of your intended heirs "on the deed"* to real estate, often the primary residence but sometimes other real property as well. This is poor planning for many, many reasons. Here are some of the reasons, in no particular order.

A surprising percentage of the population does not have an estate plan, not even a simple will.  This is a mistake for anyone over the age of 17.  There are almost too many reasons to list, but I will make an attempt here.

In a recent Florida case, Bank of America rebuffed an agent's request that funds be withdrawn from the principal's account. The agent fought back in court and just won a $64,000 judgment against the bank.

FDIC deposit insurance covers the depositors of a failed FDIC-insured depository institution dollar-for-dollar, principal plus any interest accrued or due to the depositor, through the date of default, up to at least $250,000 per owner per beneficiary, up to a maximum of $1,250,000 if fie or more eligible beneficiaries are named.

A question arose today in an online ask-a-lawyer forum that I monitor, so I decided to write a blog post about the subject because this does come up every so often. The two most common questions people ask with respect to adoption and inheritance are: Can an adopted child inherit from adoptiv...

Older parents are becoming more common, driven in part by changing cultural mores and advances in infertility treatment.

While the 2017 federal tax cut means most estates won't be subject to the federal estate tax in 2018 and 2019, state estate tax is a different matter. Some states are not going along with the increase in the federal estate tax exemption.

How frequently you should review your estate plan depends on how old you are and whether there has been a significant change in your circumstances. If you are over age 60 and you haven't updated your estate plan in many decades, it's almost certain that you need to update your documents. After that, you should review your plan every three years or so. But if you're younger, you don't need to do so nearly as often.

Many people are vaguely aware that Medicaid (not to be confused with Medicare) can collect from decedent's estates for amounts paid for the decedent's care during lifetime. What they do not know is that state laws on this vary widely. This is because Medicaid is a federal-state partnership program, and the federal laws governing the Medicaid program give states some latitude in designing their estate recovery programs. Some states are "standard recovery" states and some states are "expanded recovery" states, in the parlance used by elder law attorneys.

I get calls often from people moving to another state and wanting to know if they are going to need to have their estate plan updated. This is a very good question, and the answer is . . . it depends. That is what attorneys always say, right?

Every six months or so I get a call from someone, usually hailing from Illinois or Florida, wanted to form a "land trust" for the property they have acquired or are about to acquire in Tennessee. They get very frustrated when I tell them there is no such thing. They are familiar with "land trusts", know all about them, and are utterly convinced that I must not be a very good lawyer if I don't know about them. I do know about them; they just aren't a thing in Tennessee (or most other states for that matter). I try to explain that if they tell me what they are actually trying to achieve, we can probably get to the same place using different tools.

The Center for Medicare Advocacy is partnering with the John A. Hartford Foundation to help people caught in the web of “outpatient” Observation Status. According to their infographic available here, a hospital billing classification of "outpatient", sometimes also called "observation status", can result in Medicare patients paying out of pocket for hospital stays, hospital prescriptions and even nursing home care.