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Estate Planning’s Problems Solved
by: Jeffrey Broobin
A living trust can solve many of the problems encountered in Estate Planning. Listed below are some of the situations helped by careful estate planning. Probate Problems. Probate is the system used by the state to deal with your estate. Two main functions of probate are to identify the rightful heirs to the estate and the share size that each heir will receive, and to replace your name with that of your heirs on the legal title of the property. Assuming you don’t have any kind of revocable Living Trust Arrangements, but you do have a will, the state will be able to determine your rightful heirs and the portion of your estate each will receive. If you don’t have even a will, the state will decide on who and what portion each heir will receive, using its own procedures. Unfortunately, after you are gone, the only way your property ownership can be re-titled is through court probate procedures and supervision. Try to avoid probate because it can be a time-consuming and Expensive Process for your heirs. Probate costs can eat away one-tenth of your estate, even a small estate. This creates a burden for your heirs and an emotional drain as well. Sometimes probate leads to litigation that can result in family battles and even disregard your wishes entirely. Probate is also a public event and prevents your family from keeping its business private. Furthermore, it can Continue For Years and not provide the emotional and financial relief you would like to leave behind you at a time when it would be the most helpful to those you care for. A living trust is one good family estate planning tool to avoid probate. A living trust avoids probate by turning over the title of your property to the revocable living trust before our death. The living trust is considered to be the legal owner of the property for title transfer purposes, but you have complete control of the property during your life. When you die, the trustee that you selected during your lifetime will arrange for the transfer or payment to your heirs that you specified in the revocable living trust. As you will see later, you have a great deal of flexibility in specifying the details of these payments and transfers. One great thing about a Revocable Living Trust is that after your death the trustee can handle everything quickly and simply without lawyers, excessive costs, delays, or court supervision. Joint Tenancy Ownership Problems. Married couples and parent-child combinations sometimes choose joint tenancy with rights of survivorship as their method of holding title to both real estate and financial assets. In this method, when one joint owner dies, the surviving joint owner or owners will automatically receive your interest in the property without probate. This technique avoids probate. It does have some possible problems, however. One problem is that you and your joint tenant are mutually responsible for each other’s liabilities and if your other half incurs a judgment or tax lien, you can lose your property as well. Or, if your joint tenant is your child, should that child divorce the spouse, may get your property in the divorce settlement. Furthermore, when you die and leave your assets to your surviving spouse through joint tenancy, your spouse may give away your property to a new souse or lover and leave your children or other heirs with nothing from your estate. It is also possible that probate will not be avoided upon the death of your joint tenant spouse because that person has not done any estate planning to avoid probate. A revocable living trust is one of the best ways to hold property title, because it can avoid all of the problems mentioned above. Incapacitation Problems. Since an incapacitated owner is not capable of conveying title or signing legally binding documents, when a property owner has either sole or joint tenancy ownership and then becomes mentally incapacitated, the property is in a legally indeterminate state. In order to sell or even to lease the property, it is often necessary to obtain an expensive and time delaying court conservatorship procedure. A revocable living trust is the most comprehensive manner to deal with incapacitation issues. A simple device known as a Durable Power of Attorney may also take care of the problem in some


About the author:
Jeffrey Broobin is a free-lance writer on family and finance issues; his main goal is to help people during their complicated period of life.
Website: http://www.legalhelpmate.com
Email: jeffreyb@legalhelpmate.com


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 Seven Sets of Documents You Need For Your Divorce
 by: Scott Morgan

This article is designed to give someone who is considering or planning for the possibility of divorce an idea of what documents are needed. Even if you believe your case is ultimately agreed to and settled without a trial, you will be in a much better position if you already have the relevant documents in your possession. Better safe than sorry.

You should locate the relevant documents, make copies, and keep them somewhere secure, like your office or with a friend. You will then have access when it is needed.

Here are the most important seven categories of documents you should focus on.

1. Income Documents

Your spouse's income is relevant to a number of issues in a divorce case. At a minimum, get your spouse's last paycheck statement and your most recent tax return. Ideally, you would have access to all tax returns filed during the marriage, along with all supporting documents and schedules.

2. Bank Records

The monthly bank statements are very important and can lead you to other documents (cancelled checks, deposit slips, registers, etc.) that you also may need to obtain. Get at least the most recent statement for each account that is either held in your name, your spouse's name, or jointly. If possible, get copies of all statements going back to the date of marriage. In most cases this volume of records is not required, but in some cases these records can be very helpful and even necessary to analyze the case.

3. Retirement and Other Investment Records

Often the biggest asset a couple will own will be a 401k or pension account. So you will definitely want the most recent account statement and ideally all statements dating back to the time of marriage. Also, the last statement prior to marriage can be very significant (especially in community property states) to show the pre-marriage balance.

4. Credit Card statements

Again the most recent statements are a necessity, but a lot of important evidence can be garnered from the historical statements. In some cases, the credit card statements will show questionable transactions that can be of real evidentiary value. For example, they might show evidence of gifts or dinners purchased for paramours, questionable hotel rentals, or other dubious purchases.

5. Real estate documents

The most important real estate documents are the Deed of Trust and Warranty Deed for any property you currently own. If you have the entire file from (the giant stack of paper you got after the closing) for each real estate purchase or refinance transaction during the marriage it can be helpful. Additionally, documents evidencing real estate owned by either spouse prior to marriage can be significant, especially in community property states.

6. Mortgage statements & any Other Debts

You should get the most recent statements showing the current payoff balance for any other debts. For those debts that have only a coupon book with no regularly generated statements showing the current balance, you will probably need to contact the creditor by phone for the current payoff information.

7. Relevant emails or other correspondence

Correspondence or emails can be extremely helpful (or damaging, depending on your viewpoint) pieces of evidence in the case. Whether the communication is between spouses or between a spouse and some third-party, the communication is potentially relevant. Two common examples would be where your spouse makes a damaging admission about some issue in the case, or communications with paramours.

Conclusion

Determining which documents you need to obtain for your divorce case can be a very time-consuming and daunting task. Use this list as a starting point and discuss your situation with a quality divorce attorney. This person should be able to advise you specifically on the documents you need to obtain in order to protect your interests.


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