Probate avoidance is often a key goal for our estate planning clients. Sometimes that is best addressed by establishing a living trust. In other cases it might be just as efficient to focus on beneficiary designations. In fact, even when a living trust is involved, beneficiary designations help meet the purposes of the trust. At…
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In our last newsletter, we discussed the importance of following up your estate planning. Beneficiary designations are an important part of that process, we emphasized. Your IRA beneficiary designation can be particularly challenging to get right. You may have already noticed, too, that things change. A recent federal appellate decision (involving an Arizona state law)…
After you have signed your estate planning documents, you still have more work to do. Where will you keep original documents? Who will get copies? But here’s a topic that too often gets overlooked: the beneficiary designation. What is at issue Perhaps your will or trust directs that a particular bank account is to be…
We’ve written before about why you might want to avoid guardianship proceedings. They are expensive. More lawyers, judges and court-appointed officials are involved than most people would like to have in their lives. If you planned in advance, you probably would not choose a cumbersome, invasive and public legal proceeding. How can you avoid guardianship?…
When a court decides that a lawyer should return fees improperly collected, the usual term comes with powerful imagery. The lawyer is usually ordered to “disgorge” those fees. Courts are very protective about the fees charged in probate, guardianship and trust administration matters. Lawyers often find themselves having to justify their fees. An order to…
When our clients sign living trusts, they usually are thinking about how to simplify legal proceedings. Trusts normally are not subject to court supervision, which helps save court costs and fees. Without court oversight, though, the trustee of a trust can sometimes get crosswise with the beneficiaries. When things reach too difficult of an impasse,…
Arizona law allows you to sign a “holographic” will (or a holographic codicil). That means you can handwrite your own will and sign it. Such a will or codicil does not need the two witnesses usually required. So that means you can easily write — or change — your will yourself. Right? Please do not…
Based on popular cultural references (and especially novels, television and movies), it might seem like will contests are commonplace. In fact, very few wills are contested. When a will contest is filed, it is seldom successful.The risk that someone might contest your will is very slight — but it does happen. The background story in…
Your will should accomplish at least three simple things. It should identify who will manage the estate (the “personal representative”, in Arizona). The will should identify individual items, dollar amounts or percentages that are to go to particular recipients. Finally, the will should include a “residuary clause” — a statement about who will receive the…
When you agree to act as personal representative of a decedent’s estate, do you take on any potential personal liability? Generally not, but you should make sure everyone knows that you are acting as a fiduciary. A recent Arizona case illustrates the risk if you do not. Estate’s property is sold When Gary Barnes (not…