San Diego Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

Most people don’t like to think about their death but it is inevitable and directions to your loved ones about your wishes can ease the burden on them, and give you peace of mind knowing that your wishes have been stated and will be carried out. As part of your estate planning, you should prepare some guidelines for your successor trustee or executor - such things as where all your important documents are, names and addresses of persons to notify of your death, your wishes concerning burial, cremation, funeral services, etc. These are often placed with your will or trust so loved ones can begin planning soon after your death.

An innovative and free on line website service, MyWonderfulLife.com can help you plan your memorial service before you pass away. You can record your wishes about your funeral, choose music to be played at your service, leave letters for loved ones, or choose quotations or biblical verses to be read. You can even write your own obituary and design your own headstone. 6 “Angels” are chosen by you who will be notified upon your death of your wishes.

If you don’t have an estate plan yet, it would be a good idea to think about that too. Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP offers revocable living trust packages which include the trust, pour over will, durable powers of attorney for finances and health care, deeds and other pertinent estate planning documents. Contact us if we can help.
.

Many of us in the San Diego area start the New Year by resolving to lose weight, quit smoking, or spend more time with family. The top New Years’s Resolutions are:

• Stop smoking or drinking
• Increase physical fitness
• Lose weight
• Reduce stress at home or on the job
• Spend more time with family/enjoy life more
• Get out of debt or save more for the future

A good guide to following through with your New Year’s resolutions comes from Selfhelp Magazine which outlines the 10 keys to achieving results. The author stresses such things as making your resolutions realistic, setting a timetable for your goals, and not giving up.

While you are working on these resolutions, add a resolution to get your finances and your estate plan in order. A Disney family parenting magazine has 9 steps to get off on the right financial foot in the New Year, including creating or updating your estate plan and updating your beneficiary designations of retirement accounts, life insurance policies, annuities, etc. You should also make sure all your assets that should be in your trust are in fact properly titled.

At Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP we can help you achieve your resolution to create or update your estate plan. Call or us or e mail us to set up a complimentary appointment to create or update your will, trust, or beneficiary designations.

Earlier this month we posted a blog about identity theft during the hollidays. Malls in North County, South Bay, Carlsbad, and Mission Valley are targets for pick pockets and thieves who look to steal purses. But did you know that even deceased persons can be victims of identity theft? The deceased are easy targets because sometimes it takes weeks or months and in some cases years for financial institutions to find out about a death. The identity of a deceased person can be stolen in a variety of ways. Some identity thieves watch the obituaries, look up death certificates, or obtain private information from health care providers, unknowing relatives, or internet genealogy web sites.

Back in 2006 in Kentucky a financial planner used the confidential data of 160 deceased persons to acquire 700 credit cards from financial institutions and scammed nearly $2 million over a three year period

Although the deceased person doesn’t have to be concerned with his or her credit rating, identity theft can cause emotional distress for the family. Identity Theft Resource Center has valuable information about how to protect yourself and your deceased loved one from identity theft. They also have an information sheet with steps to take to decrease the risk of identity theft such as notifying the credit bureaus to put a “deceased” notation in their file, obtaining a copy of the decedent’s credit report, and a list of agencies and companies to notify of the death. Sample letters can be found at the California Office of Privacy Protection.

You can also stop the junk mail by contacting the Direct Marketing Assn. There you can register to take the deceased’s name off mailing lists with their Deceased Do Not Contact List.

If your loved one had a will which needs to be probated or a trust which needs to be administered after death, Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP handles many of the above steps as part of their representation. Contact us if we can help with trust administration or probate.

We, at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates extend to all of you, our clients, friends, and visitors to our web site, our best wishes for a wonderful and joyous holiday season and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Thank you to all our past and present clients for your patronage. We look forward to assisting you, as well as our new clients, in achieving your legal goals and objectives in the New Year. We hope you continue to enjoy this estate planning blog and our articles about various topics in estate planning and family law.

Again, Happy Holidays from all of us!

Whether yours is a small business or a larger closely held corporation, have you thought about what will happen to it when you have passed away? Many people work years to build up a successful business or practice. Sometimes the family business is the most valuable asset in an estate. Business succession planning is a critical part of an estate plan for someone with a business.

If the business is to stay in the family, you need to decide which family member or members are going to own it and who is going to run it. If you have no family members capable of running the business, is it to be sold to a stranger or run by a non family member with the family retaining ownership? These are all decisions you need to make before it is too late to plan. Some business owners don’t plan ahead because they don’t want to give up control or they want to avoid family conflicts.

If you don’t plan for the succession of your business however and you become disabled, it is too late to decide who steps in and runs your business. You need a business succession plan in place before you become incapacitated. This may include buy-sell agreements or other methods to buy out a partner or shareholder or it could include LLC corporations or LLP partnerships. It may involve transferring some ownership or control to children or other family members before you retire. Income tax or estate tax issues may be other considerations. Read the full article about the points to consider in business succession planning.

If you have concerns about how your business or practice will be handled upon your retirement, disability or death, contact us at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP. We can help you understand the options and alternatives available to you in business succession planning.

Many people in San Diego make revocable living trusts the primary feature of their estate plan. You may wonder where the idea of a trust came from. Trusts haven’t just been popular in the last century. Trusts are quite old. Plato back in 400 B.C. used a trust to finance his university in Greece. The Romans also used trusts. In England they were popular beginning in the 11th century in order to protect property from abusive noblemen and the King. A trust was used to vest title to real property in a trustee who would then give it to the wife, son, or daughter upon the husband’s death. Without such a trust, the property would go the lord or the King leaving the family poor and with no land to earn a living.

Trusts came to this country with the colonists. One of the first trusts was that of Governor Robert Morris of the Virginia colony. The trust was drafted in 1765 by Patrick Henry. Thereafter, William Bingham, a Senator from Pennsylvania, said to be the richest American when the colonies gained their independence, created a trust for his vast fortune.

Trusts are popular today as a way of avoiding not the King, but probate. With a living trust, you can avoid the cost of probate, the time of probate, and the lack of privacy of probate. You also can save on estate taxes if you have a sizeable estate by having the appropriate type of trust. If you are thinking about creating an estate plan, consult the experienced estate planning lawyers at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP to determine if a trust is right for you. The initial consultation is always free.

Several years ago researchers felt that by mid century there would be a big inheritance boom, somewhere between 41 trillion and 136 trillion dollars handed down from parents to children. Now things are different and not solely because of the economy. Here are some reasons why you may receive a smaller than expected inheritance:

1. Your parents are spending it all. Not intentionally maybe, but with the high cost of living, medical care, and long term care, their nest eggs may not be what they used to be. Nursing home costs can run as high as $60,000 a year or higher in some areas and long term health care may be too expensive.

2. Seniors are living longer. The National Center for Health Statistics said in 2004 that males who are 65 could live to be 82, females to 85. As seniors live longer, they consume more of their wealth.

3. Bigger families. Baby boomers come from families that were larger than today’s families. Parents of children born between 1946 - 1964 had an average of 3.5 children, thus leaving a smaller piece of the pie to be inherited by each child.

4. Some of the wealth of seniors today comes from sources that terminate upon death- pensions, social security, and some annuities.

5. Reverse mortgages and the economy now make it easier to drain a home’s equity. Today with the popularity of reverse mortgages, homeowners can tap into the equity in their homes and the pace is picking up with the problems in the economy.

6. The “Warren Buffet” philosophy. Warren Buffett, the world’s second richest man, believes that kids should get “just enough money to feel they could do anything but not enough to do nothing.” He intends to give most of his money to charity including the Melinda and William Gates Foundation.

7. Charitable giving seems to be on the rise in the last 50 years, particularly among the rich. As an example, last year billionaire Barron Hilton announced he was giving 97% of his estimated $2.3 billion estate to charity.

Even if you are not going to be receiving much of an inheritance, you should still talk to your parents or grandparents about their estate and be sure they have planned ahead by creating a living trust with powers of attorney and health care directives. Probate can be expensive and without a trust, an estate of more than $100,000 will have to be probated. For assistance with an estate plan, contact us at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP.

The San Diego County Courts hear many cases where a conservatorship is sought of an individual’s estate or person. When an individual cannot take care of his or her financial or personal affairs, it may be necessary to have the probate court appoint a conservator of the estate or of the person. A conservator of the estate is responsible for handling the finances of the conservatee. The individual appointed has broad powers to manage assets, write checks, make investments, etc. A conservator of the person is an individual appointed to make decisions about the conservatee’s personal needs such as health care, residence, food, clothing, etc.

A conservatorship can be an expensive process and may not always be necessary. Before the court appoints a conservator for an individual, it must be shown that no other alternatives are available to the proposed conservatee. These alternatives are durable powers of attorney, trusts, or the voluntary acceptance of assistance.

1. A power of attorney is a written document whereby one person (the principal) appoints another ( the agent) to act on his behalf upon incapacity. Powers of attorney for finances and for health care may provide a viable alternative to a conservatorship.

2. If the individual had a properly prepared revocable living trust, the successor trustee can step in and manage that individual’s affairs if the trustor becomes incapacitated. This needs to be done in advance of the incapacity however. Once the proposed conservatee lacks capacity, a trust cannot be created.

3. If the person who needs help with personal decisions will accept the help of relatives or friends about such things as medical care, food, clothing, and shelter, a conservatorship of the person may be avoided.

For more information about setting up a conservatorship or avoiding one by the preparation of a revocable living trust, contact us at Pinketon, Doppelt, & Associates LLP.

This summer Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill which will protect pet trusts. The bill (SB 685) makes pet trusts enforceable. The bill was supported by the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) which estimates that over half of American families have at least one pet. The bill removes the discretion of the trustee in carrying out the trust and allows the court to appoint a caregiver if the trustee doesn’t want to act. The bill actually repeals a section of the Probate Code ( Section 15212) which made pet trusts honorary and not enforceable by law.

You may ask what types of pets are affected by this bill? The new legislation provides that for purposes of this code section, an “animal” means a domestic or pet animal for the benefit of which a trust has been established. Cats, dogs, birds, and horses would be covered. If an owner wanted to establish a trust for some other domestic pet such as a python snake (which can live 40 years) or a pot bellied pig, presumably they would be covered also. It is hoped that the new law which goes into effect in January 2009 will reduce the burden on pet shelters, protect defenseless animals, and guarantee that the wishes of pet owners are carried out.

To incorporate pet trust provisions into your estate plan, call us or e mail us at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP to schedule a complimentary consultation. We can also amend existing trusts or create a revocable living trust with “pet” provisions.

A big mistake some people make is to name their minor children the beneficiary of a life insurance policy or other account with a beneficiary designation. If you die and your children are not 18, the minor won't have the authority to take control of the proceeds. The probate court will have to appoint someone as a guardian of the estate. (This is different from the guardian of the person who is the individual who physically cares for the child.) Setting up a guardianship of the estate will take time and money and probably require the services of an attorney. The Court will apppoint an adult to take over the management and control of the minor's inheritance until the minor becomes an adult. The Court has no authority however to spread the inheritance out over a number of years so this may result in a child receiving substantial money at an earlier age than the parents may have wanted.

If you have minor children and want to make them beneficiaries of life insurance policies, you should have a revocable living trust set up and make the trust the beneficiary of the proceeds. With a trust, the insurance company can transfer the proceeds directly into a trust account to be distributed to your minor children according to the terms of your trust. In this way you can insure that your minor beneficiaries will not have to have a guardian of the estate appointed and you can spread the distributions out over whatever intervals you want.

Also review your life insurance designations every few years to be sure you have the primary and secondary beneficiaries up to date. Changed circumstances in your life such as marriage, divorce, deaths, etc. may require that you make a change in beneficiaries.

If we can help you set up a revocable living trust or review your beneficiary designations, please call us or e mail us at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP for a complimentary consultation.