Estate Planning 27 - Personal Family Lawyer

Casey Kasem’s Estate Planning Not in Anyone’s Top 40

August 1, 2014

Casey Kasem, the celebrity radio host who counted down America’s Top 40 popular songs for years, died on June 15 at the age of 82 and left behind an estimated $80 million fortune. He also left a family feud of biblical proportions between his surviving spouse and his three children from a prior marriage. This…

July 18, 2014

Gifting assets can be a useful estate planning tool if you need to reduce your estate tax bill or for long-term care planning purposes. However, you need to be sure that your gift does not cause any unforeseen problems for you or the person receiving your gift. Here are five questions you should ask yourself…

July 17, 2014

Maria Shriver knows the devastation of Alzheimer’s disease firsthand. Her beloved father Sargent Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps and one-time candidate for Vice President of the United States, died of the disease in 2011 after being diagnosed in 2003. Often called “the long goodbye,” Alzheimer’s disease affects more than five million Americans and its…

July 11, 2014

It’s no surprise that Americans spend more time planning their summer vacations than they do planning their estate. After all, a vacation is a trip you want to go on, while the eternal “trip” is not. However, wouldn’t you travel with more peace of mind if you knew you had taken the necessary steps to…

July 4, 2014

If you have young children, chances are that your summer activities include some careful planning to keep them safe from harm. Unfortunately, even with proper precautions in place, accidents do happen and not just to children. Have you planned for what will happen to your children if you are the one involved in a tragic…

June 25, 2014

Rock musician Sting recently announced that his children will not inherit his estimated $300 million fortune, saying that these riches are “albatrosses around their necks.” The product of a British working class background, Sting is currently one of England’s wealthiest musicians, but says that he will not be passing that fortune on to his six…

June 11, 2014

Do you know what it takes to be a real man? Although the expectations of both men and women have evolved over the last few decades, there are still some fundamental characteristics that most people would agree constitute what it means to be a “real man.” At the top of that list would be protecting…

June 6, 2014

A new study from the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy shows that the greatest wealth transfer in history is currently underway, with more than $59 trillion passing to heirs, charities and Uncle Sam between now and 2061. The majority of this wealth — $36 trillion — is being passed directly to heirs and…

May 28, 2014

Summer has officially arrived and for those of us fortunate enough to have a vacation home – whether it’s a fishing camp on a lazy river or an oceanfront estate – the time has come to make more good memories and celebrate family traditions at that special place. A recent Forbes.com article provides some tips…

May 23, 2014

One of the most striking aspects of the recent opening of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum is the voice recordings left on the phones of the victims’ families of their last messages to loved ones. We hear so many stories of family members who keep voicemails and answering machine messages for years after…

Include Your Intellectual Property in Your Estate Plan

You don’t have to be a famous producer or household name to own intellectual property. If you create music, own a business, write stories, or build gadgets in your garage, you almost certainly have intellectual property. However, because intellectual property…

Help Your Parents Avoid These New Financial Scams – Part 2

In part one of this series, we explored two popular scams that are targeting older adults this year: the grandparent scam, and cryptocurrency pickpocketing. In this week’s blog, I’m sharing two more scams that you and your parents need to…

Help Your Parents Avoid These New Financial Scams – Part 1

Fraudsters and scam artists are nothing new, but changing tools and technology are making it easier than ever for scammers to target their victims, especially seniors. To protect your aging parents (or yourself) from these con artists, it’s crucial to…