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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Funding a Revocable Living Trust is critical to ensuring your estate avoids probate. Unfortunately in my line of work, I see too many trusts where nothing, or almost nothing, is actually funded in the trust. That is why I make sure at least every six months or so to post this chapter from my book Es...
When my grandfather passed on, I was just a few weeks away from heading out to law school. My grandmother helped raise me after my mother passed on, so when she started calling me in law school with legal questions, I did my best to explain things to her in plain English because whenever she talked ...
This one's going to be in two parts and it's about protecting the kids from a potential divorce disaster. The first part is putting together your own estate plan and what you can do to protect an inheritance that's going down to the kids so that it doesn't end up being claimed in a divorce. And as a...
The internet can be a tremendous help with research. However, there are a lot of myths, misconceptions, and outright falsehoods out there, especially when it comes to estate planning. We don’t have time to list them all, but here are the top five we have curated to help you get started.
1. Wills Do...
You’re an adult, you have a lot going on, and you’re not going to die tomorrow. As far as you know. Putting together estate planning documents may be the last thing on your mind, but it shouldn’t be if you care even a little bit about where your assets go when you pass on. Today, we’re going to cove...
Medicaid is one of the most effective, and most needed, programs when it comes to caring for seniors and our most vulnerable citizens. However, the rules are designed to be extremely complex so that families will tend to throw their hands up in frustration, spend everything they have, and then only ...
Who's on the team? Or more specifically who's on your team? When it comes to your legal and financial picture in the long run, and who is working with you and your family, it takes more than one professional to know, understand, and monitor everything. This is why a new business model is emerging fo...
Today we're going to talk about a hot topic, and I keep getting questions about this: “Hey, can't we just remotely sign our estate planning documents?”
The simple answer is “no.” In addition to it not being even legal at this time (at least in the State of North Carolina), it is also just a bad, ba...
When it comes to estate planning, there’s always more information coming our way. It’s also not just about tax updates or changes to law, but it can often be just better ways to serve our clients through technological advancements and new platforms. While state bar sponsored continuing legal educati...
It's unfortunate, but there are numerous estate planning practices that have become standard operating procedure at law firms that are not necessarily the best thing for the clients or their families. In fact, they seem designed specifically to make more money for the law firm than they are to take ...
As I was recently reminded while reviewing some legal documents for a prospective client, not all power of attorney forms are created equal. In fact, some people may mistakenly believe they are covered when that is far from the truth. Here are the five big things every good power of attorney should ...
Gun Trusts are becoming more and more popular, but there are a lot of misconceptions and myths surrounding them. Just as with avoiding probate in estate planning with a revocable living trust, gun trusts attempt to avoid as much red tape as possible during life and after death. Here are just some of...
