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In this article we will be discussing What Are the Requirements to Execute a Valid Will and Other Estate Planning Documents and we answer the questions of:
When it comes to Illinois estate planning, one important decision is whether or not a trustee should be designated as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy. Understanding the implications of this choice and how trustees work with beneficiaries in handling an estate’s affairs is crucial. This article will guide you through navigating the legal landscape in Illinois when considering making your trustee the beneficiary of your life insurance policy as part of your overall estate plan.
In our past articles on estate planning, we have primarily discussed the Revocable Trust, which allows your estate to avoid probate but does not protect your estate from creditors. If you are interested in using estate planning in order to shield certain assets from your creditors, two other vehicles may be useful: (1) the Family Limited Partnership; and (2) the Irrevocable Trust.
A lot of my friends either are starting to have children, or are thinking about having children. As you might expect, this means that I am fielding a lot of questions about wills and trusts. These conversations inevitably start with wills, because this is the estate planning instrument that most people are familiar with (e.g. “if you don’t attend University of Iowa, I am removing you from my will”). However, wills are just one component of a healthy estate plan–and not even the most important component.
In this article, we will address the question of “Are social media accounts part of one’s estate?”. In today’s world, social media accounts and other digital accounts have become a vastly large part of people’s lives. In the past when people were planning their wills and creating estate plans, they did not have to consider online or social media accounts as part of their estate. Now, however, social media accounts are considered digital assets, which are part of one’s estate.
In this article we will explained how irrevocable trusts are used for estate tax planning purposes and how irrevocable trusts work with respect to gift taxes. We explain how estate and gift tax work both federally and in Illinois. We answer the questions, what is a trust?, how do irrevocable trusts work?, are assets owned by an irrevocable trust subject to estate tax?, what are “Crummey Powers” for irrevocable trusts?, how are irrevocable trusts used to minimize estate tax?, and what are the advantages of irrevocable trusts for estate planning?
This article will discuss the CARES Act's current state and how it impacts student loan debt, and the potential for loan forgiveness. We will answer the following questions:
Are you excluded from a will but believe you have the right to inherit? You might be pondering, ‘can someone not named in a will contest it?’ The answer hinges on several factors such as your familial relationship, state inheritance laws, and the specifics of the will. Throughout this article, we’ll unpack the circumstances under which individuals not named in a will can challenge its terms, the concept of legal standing, and the strategies to navigate this complex legal terrain.
In this article we will be discussing What Are the Requirements to Execute a Valid Will and Other Estate Planning Documents and we answer the questions of:
Are you excluded from a will but believe you have the right to inherit? You might be pondering, ‘can someone not named in a will contest it?’ The answer hinges on several factors such as your familial relationship, state inheritance laws, and the specifics of the will. Throughout this article, we’ll unpack the circumstances under which individuals not named in a will can challenge its terms, the concept of legal standing, and the strategies to navigate this complex legal terrain.
In this article, we answer the question, “what is a trust contest?”, including “what does it mean to challenge a trust?”, “who can contest a trust in Illinois?”, “what are the legal grounds to contest a trust in Illinois?” and how to contest a trust in Illinois.
A spendthrift trust is one type of estate planning tool that should be considered when your looking to protect you’re money from creditors, avoid probate and make sure the beneficiaries don’t receive the transferable assets as one lump sum after death of the grantor. The spendthrift trust ultimately limits the assets available to the beneficiary and protects the rest of the assets still in the trust from creditors. The trust retains most of its assets, depending on how it is structured, for an extended period of time.
Can you change or revoke your trust? What is the process for revoking your estate plan? Can every kind of trust be revoked? Estate Planning attorney Kevin O'Flaherty explains how to revoke a trust.
Totten trusts are essentially bank accounts with a named beneficiary. They are another tool in your estate planning toolkit and can help some of your assets avoid probate upon death. You may have also heard the term, “payable-on-death account” used interchangeably with Totten trust, and that’s because they are basically the same thing. They are both informal revocable trusts that are made when the account holder signs an agreement with the bank which details instructions on how to distribute the contents of the account to the named beneficiaries upon the death of the account holder.
A spendthrift trust is one type of estate planning tool that should be considered when your looking to protect you’re money from creditors, avoid probate and make sure the beneficiaries don’t receive the transferable assets as one lump sum after death of the grantor. The spendthrift trust ultimately limits the assets available to the beneficiary and protects the rest of the assets still in the trust from creditors. The trust retains most of its assets, depending on how it is structured, for an extended period of time.
This article will discuss the CARES Act's current state and how it impacts student loan debt, and the potential for loan forgiveness. We will answer the following questions:
This article discusses how to handle gifts or loans to children already listed in a will or trust. We will answer the following questions:
Totten trusts are essentially bank accounts with a named beneficiary. They are another tool in your estate planning toolkit and can help some of your assets avoid probate upon death. You may have also heard the term, “payable-on-death account” used interchangeably with Totten trust, and that’s because they are basically the same thing. They are both informal revocable trusts that are made when the account holder signs an agreement with the bank which details instructions on how to distribute the contents of the account to the named beneficiaries upon the death of the account holder.
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