Tag: probate

  • The Importance of Funding Your Trust

    Your revocable living trust (RLT) is a vehicle to deliver your assets to your beneficiaries — including you, if you become incapacitated. Think of your RLT as a little red wagon. In order for your wagon to do its job, you must load it up with your stuff. Anything you do not put into your…

  • What’s Wrong With Probate?

    Probate can be a simple, painless process. Sometimes, however, it can be a nightmare, and that’s what gives it a bad name. Probate just means “to prove.” Your personal representative has to prove to the court that the document being offered for probate is your last will. Probate begins with your personal representative filing your…

  • By Invitation Only

    Ideally, estate planning is “by invitation only.” Most people misunderstand this to mean that we, as the lawyers, are the ones doing the inviting. In actuality, it’s you, the clients, who are doing the inviting, by inviting us into your unique and textured lives.

  • Legal: Fighting Over Assets?

    “My parents made a trust with a lawyer. Why is it not working and the trustee and beneficiaries are fighting over the assets?” Sadly, these are words I often hear from families who call me after the second parent dies to settle their parents’ estate. The Trust might have worked from the drafting attorney’s point…