You may have been appointed the executor of a family member's estate at some point in their life. If they recently passed away, then you have several matters you need to do as their executor. It is critical to act swiftly when upholding your duty as an executor. As...
When you think about estate planning, you may start with the assumption that having a will is enough to pass your property on after you pass away. The reality is that a will isn’t always enough to protect your assets or prevent certain assets from going into probate....
As you do your estate planning, there are many different ways that you can use trusts to ensure that your wishes are carried out. Some people use an incentive trust to attempt to get their heirs to live in a certain way, while others use an educational trust to pay...
An estate executor is someone named in a will who ensures that your final wishes are carried out and your assets go to the heirs you designate. A successor trustee oversees a revocable trust you created if you become unable to do so or if you die. That successor...
As a new business owner, your sole focus may be getting your business off the ground. However, you also need to constantly have an eye toward the future, and that means getting an estate plan together. Your new business could flourish, and it may even become your...
There’s a big misconception out there about trusts and what they can (and cannot) do for an estate. A lot of people think that trusts can be used to avoid inheritance taxes – but that’s not actually true. Trusts can be used to minimize (and sometimes avoid) estate...
A trust can certainly be a useful tool when making an estate plan. You can use it to control how the money that you put into the trust is used in the future. That said, it's essential to carefully consider all of the steps you take when you make this trust. You don't...
Getting remarried when you already have children can be a practical decision. Marrying someone with children of their own means that you can combine forces to parent together. Your children gain a stepparent and stepsiblings, while you gain a spouse and stepchildren....
If you're considering a trust as part of your estate planning, one of the first decisions you have to make is if you want to use a revocable trust – often called a living trust – or if you'd like to use an irrevocable trust. They're similar in some ways, in that...
Some people opt to pass assets down to beneficiaries through the use of a trust. This is an arrangement that enables the assets to bypass the probate process. A trust can be set up based on specific wishes from the creator. When a person creates a trust, the assets...