The Plain English Attorney Blog
Far too many attorneys overcomplicate things, making topics convoluted and difficult to understand to the average person. This blog is committed to explaining legal planning topics in an easy to understand format, in plain English. Enjoy the blogs, and please let us know if there is a topic you would like covered.
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I occasionally go on Reddit and respond to posts in the r/estateplanning section. This time, it was to help warn someone about trying to do their own trust by getting a form online. Unfortunately, they didnāt know what they didnāt know, and despite the pleas of commentors to get a lawyer, they took ...
As technology improves and my video skills have quickened, itās becoming easier to produce more content to post on YouTube and social media on a regular basis without eating up much more time. In addition, there are only so many videos and posts that can be focused on the same or similar estate and ...
Many of my long-time estate planning clients have commented on my weight loss over and asked how I did it. While fitness isnāt really related to estate or Medicaid planning, or even law in general, I do think that this fitness journey has made me a better person and better professional. This recurri...
When an estate goes through probate, privacy is out the door worse than Beyonce taking a stroll down Rodeo Drive. In this outtake from the webinar āEstate Planningā¦ Bigger Than Beyonceā I review the loss of privacy that occurs to an estate mired in this court process. For the full FREE webinar, sign...
"Hearsay is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.ā In this reaction video, I explain in plain English the definition of āhearsayā that kept popping up in the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard t...
Many of our estate planning clients have chosen to use a Revocable Living Trust as a way to avoid probate of their estate as much as possible when they pass on. Unfortunately, just having the documents set up is not enough to avoid probate. The process of ātrust funding,ā meaning retitling assets or...
āProbate fees in our state are not that high.ā Unfortunately, I hear this from some attorneys who focus their practice on handling probate, and probate is exactly what you get when you rely on a Last Will and Testament for your estate plan. Considering theĀ massive attorney's fees involved in handlin...
This question keeps coming up... "Does a trust need a separate taxpayer identification number?" It depends. In general...
* Revocable Living Trusts do not need an EIN/Taxpayer ID if the Trustor(s) are still alive
* Irrevocable Trusts generall DO need a separateĀ EIN
* Hybrid Irrevocable Trusts lik...
Sometimes something that is ācommon knowledgeā is just a myth, and myths are prevalent in estate planning for special needs beneficiaries. For example,
* MYTH: You can't leave an inheritance to to a beneficiary with special needs.
* MYTH: You should leave a house, a ...
One of the hot new investment trends is NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens. Because it is so new, questions come up about how this investment is funded into a revocable living trust. In this video, I run through the basics of NFTs and how they need to be titled to work with your revocable living trust to ...
When it comes to special government programs, what on the surface appears to be a good deal may not really be to your advantage or especially to your estate beneficiaries. Unfortunately, chances are that you are already invested in once these ādealsā That is, unless you know all of the rules and you...
It seems that everything these days moves faster, and we just donāt have enough time to look at things as thoroughly as we need to. Even when it comes to topics that can be critical to improving our lives, people donāt have the time to piece together information from multiple sources to see how it a...
