As you are engaged in your inheritance planning efforts, you’re going to have to consider the different choices that you have. One of the primary decisions that you are going to have to make will involve the vehicle or vehicles of asset transfer that you utilize. Everyone has heard of a last Will and a lot of people automatically assume that this is the vehicle that they will use.

In fact, you may want to take pause. If you use a last Will to direct the transfer of your assets to your loved ones, your estate is going to have to be probated. During this process the probate court determines the validity of the Will. If there are no challenges and it is in fact deemed to be valid, the court will supervise the administration of the estate.

The process of estate administration is time-consuming. Depending on whether or not there are any challenges and the relative complexity of the matter coupled with the court caseload it can take anywhere from a number of months to multiple years for an estate to be probated. No monies are distributed until this process has run its course.

This time lag is one of the reasons why people often choose to enable the transfer of assets in a different manner. Revocable living trusts are frequently used, but if you use a trust you still need to execute a Will. A pour-over Will is going to direct assets that you have remaining in your personal possession into the trust after you pass away.

To learn more about Wills and Trusts, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a licensed Hartford Estate Planning attorney.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Professional guidance is important when you are interested in making preparations for the future. As a layperson, it is very likely that you are not going to be aware of all of the different legal instruments that are available to you and why you may use one and not another and that is why you need to speak to an estate planning attorney.

There can be a lot more to comprehensive estate planning than simply drawing up a last Will, and in fact you may want to use an alternative to a Will such as a revocable living trust. These trusts are very appealing to some people because they enable the transfer of assets outside of the legal process of probate.

Probate is going to bring things to a standstill for a while as the court determines the validity of the Will and supervises the administration of the estate. Nobody in the family receives inheritances until the estate has been probated. In addition to the time lag, there are significant expenses that go along with the probate process. These are pitfalls that many people would prefer to avoid through the creation of a revocable living trust.

Trust administration is pretty straightforward. You as the creator of the trust are the grantor or settlor. You have to name a beneficiary who would inherit the resources in accordance with the terms that you set forth when you create the trust.

Someone has to actually handle the resources, potentially make investments, and distribute funds to the beneficiary. This is the trustee, and a lot of people will use a professional entity to act as the trustee such as the trust department of a bank.

If you are interested in providing your loved ones with inheritances in a smooth and efficient manner a revocable living trust may be a good choice. To obtain all of the details, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a licensed Hartford estate planning lawyer.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Far too many people in America are going through life without a last Will or a Living Will. A Harris survey was conducted in 2009 that included 1022 adults. The survey found that only 35% of the respondents had a last Will in place and only 29% of the people who participated had executed a living will. This is a sad state of affairs and hopefully these figures will start to trend upward.

With the above in mind, what happens when you die without a Will? Dying without a Will is called dying “intestate,” and if you die intestate you are leaving your family members with a rather confused situation. The matter will fall into the hands of the probate court, and the court will have to appoint a personal representative to administer your final affairs.

The way that assets will be distributed is through the utilization of legally recognized laws of succession. Your closest relative will inherit your resources once any creditors or other claimants against the estate have been satisfied. Of course, this is going to take a good bit of time.

Family members can sometimes disagree about various things that must be done such as the liquidation of property. This can lead to legal actions that slow things down and create general disharmony in the family.

Intestacy is to be avoided. If you do not have a Will in place at present, right now would be a good time to take action to arrange for an appointment with a good Hartford Estate Planning lawyer.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you are one of the many who has never given estate planning a whole lot of thought the term probably conjures images in your mind of the classic estate planning document that you hear people talk about in the old movies: the “last will and testament.” Most people are aware of the fact that these documents are used to elucidate your wishes with regard to the distribution of your assets after death. Traditionally the “will” was used to distribute real property, and the “testament” was used to articulate the desired distribution of personal property, but at this point the single term “will” generally suffices.

There is however another commonly recommended type of will called the living will. Unlike the standard last will and testament the wishes that are communicated in a living will come into play while the testator is still alive. Through the execution of a living will you state your preferences with regard to the types of medical procedures that you would be willing to accept those that you would prefer to refuse if you were to fall into a medical condition that precluded your ability to communicate your decisions in real time.

The issue of whether or not you want to be kept alive through the use of artificial means if you were to fall into a terminal or persistent vegetative condition is at the core of many living wills. However you can be as specific and detailed as you would like to be with the document, and it could be argued that the execution of such an advance health care directive is truly a must for adults of all ages.

You never know what the future holds and accidents and sudden illnesses can befall people in the blink of an eye. If your wishes are not known your family members can find themselves in an excruciating position, disagreements can arise at the worst possible time, and your treatment may not proceed in the matter that you have chosen had you taken the time to state your preferences.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you are considering the manner in which you would like your assets to be distributed after your death you may decide that charitable giving is part of the plan. Doing what you can to help those less fortunate than you is always meaningful, but it takes on an added significance as your twilight years begin to appear over the horizon. There are a number of ways that one can fulfill this admirable philanthropic urge, and one of them is through the creation of a charitable remainder trust.

With the charitable remainder trust you fund the vehicle and you then receive income from it for a specified period of time; many people will use the trust to provide income for the rest of their lives. The amount that you receive must be at least 5% the fair market value of the principal as determined by the trustee and no more than 50% (10% is one standard rule of thumb).

You are required to accept a distribution annually at minimum, but you can stipulate that more frequent distributions take place. With charitable remainder unitrusts (CRUTS) this amount is a percentage of the value of the assets in the trust. With charitable remainder annuity trusts (CRATS) the donor (or whoever the beneficiary or beneficiaries may be) receives a fixed amount.

At the end of the trust term, the charity or tax-exempt entity of your choice assumes ownership of the remaining assets in the trust, and this remainder interest actuarially must be at least 10% of the original contribution.

From a tax perspective, right off the bat the contribution into the trust is removed from your estate for estate tax purposes. If you contribute appreciated assets that appreciation is not subject to capital gains tax at the time they are transferred into the trust, nor are subsequent earnings once the trust has been established. And you are also entitled to a charitable deduction from estate taxes for the amount of the remainder interest in the trust.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Most people who are planning for their retirement years are passionate about their careers, and though it is nice to think about a life of leisure it can be hard to make the decision to retire. For one thing, when you have traveled a steady career path your have reached the pinnacle around the time you will be retiring. You have the position that you always had your eye on and it is difficult to relinquish this thing that you worked so hard to attain. Plus, your earnings will usually be at their peak, and this too is hard to walk away from.

And then there is the matter of the team. You may look around and see the fallout that your departure is likely to create and feel as though you would be letting some people down if you were to retire. It is not easy to replace someone who has been there day in and day out for many years, learning lessons that only experience can teach. In a very real sense some people are irreplaceable in this regard.

Another factor that makes it tough to step away and start to enjoy your retirement is the matter of unfinished business. In spite of the success that you have had throughout your career, there may be some things that you set out to achieve in behalf of your company that are still undone. Accomplishing that one final objective could be the cherry on top of your long and successful career, and this can motivate you to postpone your retirement until you can get it done.

When you look at the plight of the great NFL quarterback Brett Favre, you see how someone can find it hard to let go and move on into retirement. He did indeed accomplish some great things after deciding to backtrack on his retirement plans. But now Favre is demonstrating some of the pitfalls that come along with resisting retirement until the bitter end, and this is something to consider as your career is winding down.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

One of the reasons why young people who don’t have a lot of assets need to have an estate plan in place is to make sure that their children are provided for should both parents perish together in an accident. You may say that if they don’t have any resources they will have nothing to pass along for the benefit of the children. This is true, and that’s why it is important for people in this situation to carry enough life insurance coverage to provide for the long term needs of their dependents.

Of course you can’t bequeath these insurance policy proceeds directly to the children, so the way that this is normally handled is through the creation of a testamentary trust. We have all heard the term “last will and testament,” and both of these terms are describing a document that achieves the same purpose. In days gone by the will distributed the real property and the testament was used for personal property distribution, but the term no longer implies these distinctions. So a testamentary trust is literally a trust contained within a testament or will.

To use a testamentary trust to provide for your children you would create the vehicle while you are drawing up your will. You have to appoint a trustee to administer the funds, and this is of course a very important decision. The trustee will be handling the funds for the duration of the trust term, which may be until the children reach a certain age or until they complete their education. The trustee will also have to regularly meet with the probate court who will review his or her administration of the trust. This is a long term commitment and it can be time consuming, so it is important to select a trustee who is cognizant of this and fully willing to undertake the responsibility.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

It could be said that end of life planning contains three distinct components: the physical, the financial, and the philosophical. You can state your wishes concerning these matters by drawing up three different wills.

Standard Will

When most people hear the term “will” as it applies to estate planning they are going to think about the standard will that provides instructions for the distribution of the property of the deceased. We have all heard the term “last will and testament.” The distinction between the two is that traditionally the “will” referred to the transfer of real property, and the “testament” covered the distribution of personal property. These days the document is usually referred to as a will and this distinction is not required.

Living Will

A living will is a document that estate planning attorneys recommend so that the health care wishes of their clients will be honored in the event of their incapacity. You can be as specific or general as you want to be when you are drawing up your living will, but the matter of life support systems and whether or not you approve of their use is often at the core of a living will. Matters of pain control and how and where you would like to be treated can also be addressed in your living will.

Ethical Will

The ethical will is something that dates back to biblical times, and it is a document that is intended to pass along spiritual, moral and ethical beliefs and advice. Drawing up an ethical will is going to enable your heirs and future generations to draw from your wisdom and give them an idea of how you feel the assets that you are passing along should be handled. At the same time, externalizing your own perspective via the creation of an ethical will is a cathartic act that has a positive psychological impact on you as the author of the document.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The estate tax in 2011 is going to impact a lot of people who didn’t have to be concerned about it previously, and it is important to understand the ramifications of the tax. Many people are under the impression that the estate tax is only levied on “the rich” due to the exclusion amount, but this has never been the case and it is certainly not going to be the case in 2011.

The estate tax was repealed for 2010 due to some provisions in what are commonly called the “Bush tax cuts,” but the last year that the tax was in effect, 2009, the exclusion amount was $3.5 million. This means that if your estate was valued at less than this amount you paid no estate tax, and if it was valued at more than $3.5 million only the portion that exceeded the exclusion was subject to the tax. In 2011, that exclusion amount is going to be just $1 million.

Many would argue that a couple who have accumulated $3.5 million in total assets throughout their lives should not be compared with the Warren Buffets of the world for tax purposes. But now that the estate tax exclusion stands at $1 million, it is clearly not the domain of the wealthy. So, the solution is to reduce the value of your estate in an effort to stay under that exclusion amount.

One way to do this is through the creation of a QPRT or qualified personal residence trust. You place your home in the trust and you make your heirs, presumably your children, the beneficiaries. You can then live in the house rent-free for a term that you elucidate in the trust agreement. At this point your home is no longer a part of your estate for tax purposes unless you were to die before the term expired.

The funding of the trust with the home is subject to the gift tax, but the taxable value of the property is reduced by the donor’s retained interest in it. So, if that value is less than the lifetime gift tax exclusion of $1 million, the home will ultimately change hands free of both estate and gift tax liability.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you are planning your estate you hear about a lot different legal instruments, but perhaps the most basic and well known among them is the will. This is of course the document that you draw up to elucidate your wishes with regard to the distribution of your assets after your death. There is also the living will, and this is an an advance health care directive. The living will is used to express your medical preferences in writing so that your wishes are known should you be unable to communicate your health care decisions due to incapacitation at some future juncture.

The ethical will is another type of will that is not talked about nearly as much, and it should be emphasized that it is not a legal document. But in spite of this, it is a very useful and important estate planning tool that can be of immeasurable value to you and your loved ones. The ethical will began as something that was passed down orally going back to biblical times, and the tradition was carried on through the authorship of written documents of a largely rabbinical nature.

Today, ethical wills are written by people of all faiths and creeds, and the content is generally of an instructive nature, meant to pass along the ethical, moral, and spiritual ethics of the author. Aside from providing guidance for succeeding generations, drawing up an ethical will has cathartic value to the writer. One can seek forgiveness for past transgressions or simply pour out the contents of his or her heart in an earnest act of emotional release.

Some people choose to write their ethical will before embarking on the rest of their estate planning. In this manner they obtain a sense of spiritual equilibrium that allows them to proceed from an appropriate mindset.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.