In creating an estate plan, you are proactively taking steps to ensure that your assets will be distributed according to your wishes in the wake of your death. One tool available to you in estate planning is known as a trust. There are numerous kinds of trusts. If you wish to maintain control, during your lifetime, over the assets you place in a trust, you may choose to establish a revocable, or “living” trust – most likely, along with a pour over will. First, What Is a Living Trust? A living trust is a strategy in estate planning. When you Continue Reading
What Does Having Power of Attorney With Dual Agents Mean?
A power of attorney is among one of the most important incapacity planning documents you can have. It designates someone you trust with taking care of your affairs if you become unable to do so. In a power of attorney, you give one or more trusted people of your choice the right to manage your affairs if you cannot do so because of a medical emergency, mental incapacity, or other life event. Every state has its own rules for the format, content, and provisions of powers of attorney. In New York, for example, the statutory form states that, once executed, Continue Reading
Estate Planning Basics: What Is a Beneficiary to a Will?
People create wills to establish what happens to their money and assets when they pass away. In these estate planning documents, they can name beneficiaries – individuals who will receive money, other assets, or specific bequests like sentimental items upon the person’s death. Are Beneficiaries Heirs? Both beneficiaries and heirs can inherit money and assets when someone dies. While beneficiaries can be the decedent’s family, they do not have to be related to the person who made the will. Beneficiaries can also be friends, charity organizations, or other entities; they are specifically named in a person’s will. In the event Continue Reading
Covid Forces Families to Rethink Nursing Home Care
By Reed Abelson, Published in the New York Times Even with vaccines, many older people and their relatives are weighing how to manage at-home care for those who can no longer live independently. At 86, Diane Nixon, living in an apartment at the back of a daughter’s house, no longer drives and has trouble getting around. When her health worsened last year before the coronavirus pandemic, she and all four of her daughters talked about whether a nursing home would be the next step. She worried that she had become a burden to her children. “She was very adamant about Continue Reading