Blog Post by: Melissa C. Platt, Esq.
If you own a car, you know it requires regular maintenance in order to perform well and be reliable. When you purchased your car, you probably received a recommended schedule for service. If you follow that schedule, most likely your car will continue to work well. If you don’t follow that schedule, you are taking the chance that your car will let you down.
Did you know that your estate plan also needs to be “serviced” on a regular basis? Your estate plan is based on a snapshot of your life at the time your plan was created. But over time, things change. Your family structure changes, your assets change, and the laws change too. Having regularly scheduled maintenance on your estate plan will ensure it doesn’t let you down.
How Often Should You Review Your Estate Plan?
When creating an estate plan, you should look for a lawyer who will review your plan at least every three years at no additional charge. Ideally, your attorney will offer a low-cost maintenance program that will allow you to have your plan reviewed annually and make any necessary changes. I know that seems like an extremely self-interested statement coming from a lawyer! And I am of the opinion that well-informed people make the best decisions, so I’ll lay out the options for you, and let you decide for yourself.
I’ve had a number of clients ask me if it is possible for them to “hide” their money legally. The answer is, of course, not a simple one. It really depends upon who you’re trying to hide it from and how you define the word “hide” in this context.
The other day, my wife went over to her grandparents' home to help them make sure their trust was properly "funded." After her visit, she shared with me her grandparents' confusion about the funding process because they thought "everything was all taken care of" when they signed their trust document. This is such a common misunderstanding that I thought the topic of funding was worth revisiting today.
Last week, I explained how using a spendthrift trust can protect the inheritance you leave to your children from divorces, lawsuits, and creditors that your children may encounter in the future.
What would you say if I told you that you could give your children a gift that they can never give themselves and that this gift could possibly save your family hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars? Sound too good to be true? It's perfectly legal (
lt deserved a thoughtful answer. This client had recently come across an article written by an attorney who claimed that naming your Revocable Living Trust (a very common estate planning tool) with your own family name could put your family’s privacy in grave danger. The article’s author claimed that such a practice “completely destroys the entire privacy prong of trust benefits.” [emphasis mine]. This statement is misleading for at least two reasons:
This is by far the most frequently asked question we get, and I cringe every time I hear it (or variations of it) because I know the answer will be unsatisfactory to the person who has just asked the question and to me as well.
Many of my clients have heard me quip about how Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should be worried beginning New Year’s Day, 2010 because of the large target that Congress has placed squarely upon their backs. Now, to be honest, there is most likely no actual, physical threat to their lives because they have probably done appropriate estate planning. But this quip helps me to illustrate a point about Estate Taxes. On New Year’s Day 2010 – unless something happens within the next few weeks over in Washington D.C. – the Estate Tax or “Death Tax” will go away in a puff of smoke. In other words, as the laws currently stand, any one individual who dies in 2010 owning over $3.5 million worth of property will not have to pay Uncle Sam 1 red cent in estate taxes. 
The Ohio Supreme Court 
I am frequently asked by friends and neighbors the following question: "Do I really need an estate plan? I'm not a Rockefeller, after all." My typical response is: "You already have an estate plan. You just need to study it and decide if you're comfortable with it."
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