Let’s back up a minute. What happens if you die without any estate planning at all? No will, no trust, nothing. If this happens, then you die intestate. Several things happen if you die intestate. Your estate must go through probate if you die intestate. This means the court must get involved to rule on the distribution of your assets because whatever possessions and property you have must, by law, be distributed. If you die without a will or trust, then Massachusetts law dictates how your assets will be distributed. You will not have any say in the matter. The Read More
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You Get What You Pay For
Awhile back, I had a potential client contact me about creating her estate plan. She was well aware that she or her husband might have to go into a nursing home at some point, and she did not want to lose her family home to Medicaid if that happened. I discussed with her at length what I thought would be the best estate plan I could draft to suit her needs. She thought it sounded great and after discussing horses – she had horses in her childhood – I hung up from our conversation and sent her the requested engagement Read More
Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
I find that a lot of people aren’t sure what estate planning involves or if they really need an estate plan. Let’s start with an explanation of estate planning before I go into any specifics about it. What is Estate Planning? Estate planning sounds like it’s for very rich people who have a lot of property to give away and estate taxes to avoid. The truth is that estate planning is for anyone who has reached the age of majority, which is 18 years old in Massachusetts. It has two very important parts to it. One is your incapacity documents, Read More
Respecting Aretha Franklin’s Wishes
You may have seen the latest headline about Aretha Franklin’s estate. Not one, not two, but three handwritten wills have been found and submitted to the court. There are several reasons why this news is so important. When Ms. Franklin died, it was reported that she had no estate planning. Generally speaking, that means she died intestate, and the state law where she was a resident, Michigan in this case, decides how her assets are divided. With the discovery of three handwritten wills, the court now has to decide if any of the wills are actually valid under state law, Read More
The Trouble with Photos
I don’t know about you but one of the fun things about owning a horse business is that I get to look through interesting photos whenever I put together material for my website or social media. There are literally millions of photos online to look at. Really. I just did a Google search for “horse image,” for example, and got 1,990,000,000 results in .52 seconds. I could just download any number of photos for my website and social media accounts, right? Wait. Whoa. Not so fast. Did you read the viral story about the hipster? Yes, this does connect to Read More