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Writing Your Own Obituary as an Addition to Your Estate Plan An obituary can be much more than an announcement of the time and location of your funeral or memorial service. It can be a way to share your life story, communicate information about significant events and people, and share values you would like to…

Spring Cleaning: Time to Clean Up Your Estate Planning With spring fast approaching, now is the time to dust off your estate plan to ensure that it will still achieve your goals, as well as to avoid unintended consequences that may arise as a result of divorces, deaths, births, or other changes that have occurred…

Considering Your Role in Others’ Estate Plans It is important to think carefully about your ability or willingness to serve as an executor or trustee for someone else. If a family member or friend has asked you to serve as the executor of his or her estate or as trustee of a trust he or…

Ancillary Probate: What You Need to Know Many people own property in more than one state—perhaps a vacation home near the beach, or a car titled in a former home state. Without proper estate planning, there may be additional probate proceedings your loved ones have to go through to receive your property. We can help…

We All Need Checkups: Your Estate Plan Does Too One reason for getting a regular physical is to detect and treat concerns before they become serious. Likewise, it is important for your estate plan to get a regular check up to address changes in your life circumstances or in the law. Like an undetected medical…

Common Mistakes with DIY Estate Plans The internet offers all the information and tools we need at our fingertips to create our own estate plan, right? For most people, this is simply not true. Although your DIY “estate plan” may initially cost only $49.95, it may end up being much, much more expensive than an…

Which Distribution Method Is Best? Showing Your Children the Love Every parent wishes they could love and protect their children forever. Leaving an inheritance through trust ensures you can still contribute to their well-being once you are gone. There are a variety of ways that you can leave money and property to your children. You…

Nothing Says “I Love You” Like Planning for Your Spouse You’ve built a life together, you’ve weathered of storms, and you’ve saved for your future. Now what? It’s time to prepare for the possibility that your spouse may survive you. Ease that future burden by protecting your spouse and other loved ones now! There are…

Fraud Advisory: Protect Your Social Security. The Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration has released a Fraud Advisory. Here’s what you need to know. All over the country, scammers pretending to be government employees are obtaining personal information from people who don’t know what to look out for. Keep your Social Security and…

Estate Planning is Like Building a Snowman If you leave out important documents when you create your estate plan, it is unlikely to accomplish all of your goals, and the benefits you thought you were gaining could melt away. Step 1: Shape a strong foundation—the trust The foundation of a snowman is the large snowball…