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Tag: Maryland Estate Plan

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After Divorce and Remarriage

MP900178564[1]If you have been divorced and remarried, do not consider yourself done with all of the legalities when your divorce is finalized and your marriage license filed. You still need to do some estate planning.

For most people, getting divorced is a legal headache. There is all sorts of legal and financial paperwork that must be gathered, filled out and filed with the court. You might have to go through multiple meetings with attorneys, formal mediation and several court hearings before the process is over. It can take months and in some cases years.

If you go to get remarried, then you have even more legal and financial paperwork that needs to be filled out and filed. While you might want that to be the end of all the legal things you have to do, it is not.

As Splitopia points out in "Protect Those You Love in Divorce, and Remarriage," there are other details you need to mind or avoid them to your peril.

These other things you still need to do include:

·         Change Your Estate Plan – Your estate plan likely had your former spouse receiving much of your property. It should be changed immediately after your divorce is final. It should be changed again to include your new spouse when you get remarried.

·         Update Beneficiaries – If you have any life insurance policies, retirement accounts or transfer on death bank accounts, then you need to make sure those are changed as well to make sure your former spouse is a beneficiary on them and to include your new spouse if you want to.

After getting divorced and remarried you probably do not want to deal with attorneys for a while. However, estate planning attorneys are only there to assist you and you need their help at that time. Visit with one.

Reference: Splitopia (Oct. 5, 2016) "Protect Those You Love in Divorce, and Remarriage."

 

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Do You Really Need to Sell Your House to Afford a Nursing Home? Not With An Estate Plan

Bigstock-Senior-Couple-8161132[1]All too often when one spouse in a marriage needs nursing home care, the couple assumes that the only way they can pay for that care is to sell their home. That might not be the case.

Overall, Americans do a poor job of planning for their estates and making plans should they need long-term care in a nursing home. This is because so many Americans do not ever make any plans at all.

Of those that do, many choose to make their own plans and that is a mistake. Those who seek out professional planners normally have good plans.

For the many who have no plans or who have bad plans, they often receive a rude awakening when their spouse needs care in a nursing home. Many of these Americans do not think they have any other option but to sell the family home so the government will pay for the care under Medicaid.

However, that is not always the only option.

This issue was taken up recently by the Boston Globe in “Seniors have more options than selling their home.”

Before selling their homes to pay for nursing home care, seniors are advised to seek out the services of an elder law attorney. The attorney can assess the situation to determine what other options, if any, are available.  At Profit Law firm, during crisis planning, we will review the options to see if a trust, deed transfer or another option works.

The even better option is to plan ahead.

Get a professionally crafted estate plan that includes the possibility of long-term care in a nursing home. Doing so will make it far less likely that having a spouse go into a nursing home will necessitate selling the family home.  Call us for a consultation today.

Reference: Boston Globe (Aug. 20, 2016) “Seniors have more options than selling their home.”

 

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You Can Plan for the Unexpected

Bigstock-Elder-Couple-With-Bills-3557267[1]Estate planning is one of the few things that you can do to legitimately plan ahead for the unexpected.

In most walks of life it is almost impossible to plan for the unexpected. Even when you can, it is often a waste of time. No offense to Doomsday preppers, for example, but it is almost impossible and most likely a waste of time to plan for the zombie apocalypse. The chances of such an event happening in our lifetime are exceedingly slim and we do not really know everything we would need to survive such a thing.

Even in business it is often difficult to plan for the unexpected. If a business person does not expect something to happen, it is a waste of resources to plan for it. It is usually better to spend those resources growing the business.

However, as WXOW points out in “Planning ahead for the unexpected with a will,” estate planning is different.

With estate planning we can plan for the unexpected and it will never be a complete waste of time. Most of us do not expect to die anytime soon, but we all know that we will die someday.

If you get an estate plan now, you have not wasted your time even if you do not pass away for decades. At some point the estate plan will be used.

By estate planning long before you expect to need it, you hedge your bets just in case something unexpected does happen tomorrow, but you also plan for the inevitable.

Getting an estate plan does not have to be a difficult process.

If you hire a qualified estate planning attorney, then the attorney will do most of the heavy lifting. You can get an estate plan that will be good should you need it next week or sometime later this century.  Get a head start with Profit Law Firm, a law office that focuses on estate planning.

Reference: WXOW (Aug. 5, 2016) “Planning ahead for the unexpected with a will “

 

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Avoiding Estate Mistakes

Elder Couple With BillsIf you do not have an Maryland estate plan or have a bad plan, then it is likely that your loved ones will have a more difficult time than necessary inheriting your wealth. Fortunately, for most people getting a good Maryland estate plan is easier than they often think.

One of the many reasons people in Maryland put off planning for their estates is that they imagine it is much more difficult to do than it really is. For most people a good Maryland estate plan follows a simple formula. They need to decide who they want to inherit their property, hire an experienced Maryland estate planning attorney and have the appropriate documents drawn up.

Recently, Kiplinger wrote about four steps to take in “4 Strategies to Avoid an Estate-Planning Mishap.”

They include:

  • Get a basic will that details who you want to have your property and what they should have.
  • Create a living trust and put your most important assets in it. With a trust in place most of your estate will not need to go through probate after you pass away, which makes things much easier on your family.
  • Make sure all of your financial accounts are properly titled. Some you might want to put in your new trust. For others you can make them payable on death so they will automatically go to a person of your designation after you pass away.
  • Consider getting a life insurance policy. If your family is in need of cash after you pass away, they will have access to it through the life insurance benefit. This is a good way to make sure that your family has what it needs while waiting for your estate to be legally settled.

A qualified Maryland estate planning attorney can help you design – and implement –  a Maryland estate plan appropriate for your unique circumstances.

Reference: Kiplinger (Aug. 2016) “4 Strategies to Avoid an Estate-Planning Mishap.”