Beneficiary Designations
What Is the HEMS Standard?
The ‘HEMS’ (health, education, maintenance, support) standard in estate planning is used to guide trustees in how/when they should release funds to a beneficiary.
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The ‘HEMS’ (health, education, maintenance, support) standard in estate planning is used to guide trustees in how/when they should release funds to a beneficiary.
Executors can use additional information in administering estates, especially if the executor is unrelated to the decedent.
Non-probate assets are those assets which do not go into an estate when the owner dies.
Most people should have a will, but it’s rarely the most significant estate planning document an individual holds.
If a loved one asks you to be the executor of their estate, think carefully before you take on this responsibility.
Life estates can provide effective means to create joint ownership of property, avoid probate and transfer property after death without incurring gift taxes.
My wife died and left a bank account with no beneficiary. The bank tells me I have to go through probate. I inherited everything else. What do I have to do?
There are many ways to pass property on to children, including gifting the family home to them while you are still alive, bequeathing it to the children upon your passing, or selling the residence to your heirs.
One of the most useful estate planning tools is a trust, which can be used to create a legacy of wealth and protecting assets. One question to consider when creating one, is whether a grantor or non-grantor trust is more appropriate. A non-grantor trust is any trust that is not a grantor trust.
Good estate planning must consider more than what you want to happen to your property and for your beneficiaries. It also must consider what you intentionally want to avoid happening.
Locking up certain important documents and valuables in a bank vault could turn into a headache for you or your heirs.
If you’re merely dipping your toe in cryptocurrency, it can be hard to imagine your crypto as something worth talking to an estate attorney about. But that $100 in fun money could grow to a significant percentage of your total investments, sometimes overnight.
The probate process gets a bad reputation, but it’s the reality many families will face. It is a process that can function well for some small estates.
The costs of long-term care for older adults can be significant. Federal Medicare health insurance benefits do not cover most of these costs. Most people who incur costs for long-term care cover them with a combination of personal savings, long-term care insurance and Medicaid, among other sources.
If your life changes, so should your estate plan. Marriage, divorce, death of a spouse, a birth and a changing relationship with a child are just some of the life changes that may affect your estate plan.
Even those who have saved and invested well may not be sharing their financial information with a spouse or loved one. It’s time to do that now.
Your elderly mother is getting forgetful and confused. What do you do now?
A commonly used type of over-the-counter medication can worsen hypertension.
Losing your spouse is a painful, confusing time, but add to that repeated calls from an aggressive debt collector and a bad situation suddenly can get even worse.