Maximizing Lifetime Social Security Benefits

September 28, 2022

Unless you know your date of death, it’s challenging to know how to start maximizing lifetime Social Security benefits. But, as explained in an article titled “How to Calculate Your Social Security Break-Even Age” from U.S. News & World Report, you can get close.

Age 62 is when people can start taking payments, but they will be reduced compared to those taken at full retirement age. To achieve the maximum monthly benefit, wait to take benefits at age 70. The total monthly benefit will be higher if you start collecting at a later age, but it will take a while to receive the same amount if you start taking benefits earlier. The “break-even” point comes when the payments later in life begin to exceed the value of taking payments earlier.

A number of factors are at play:

Your personal and family health history
Your spouse’s age and benefits level
Other income streams

Here’s one example. If your full retirement age (FRA) is 67 and your benefits will be $2,000 per month, but you decide to collect at age 62, your monthly benefit is reduced by up to 30%. You’ll receive $600 less if you start payments at age 62, and your monthly benefit will be reduced to $1,400. If you can wait until your Full Retirement Age, the monthly benefit will be $2,000. Every additional year after age 67 you don’t take benefits, your monthly benefit increases by 8%. This would give you a monthly benefit of $2,480 per month at age 70.

Taking the wider view, claiming at age 62 means a total of around $470,000 in benefits if you live to 90 (not including any COLAs, or Cost Of Living Adjustments). Claiming at Full Retirement Age would net about $595,000 by age 90. If you started claiming benefits at age 62, you’d have to reach age 80 to break even with what you would have received if you’d waited until Full Retirement Age (FRA).

But there are other things to take into consideration. Since none of us knows when we are going to die, deciding when to start taking Social Security benefits should look at other considerations. One is your life expectancy. In some families, living into the late 90s is common, while others rarely make it past 70. If you have a chronic medical condition like diabetes, a heart condition or cancer, you may want to start taking benefits earlier.

Another element is your spouse’s medical status and benefits. If the main breadwinner takes benefits early, the surviving spouse’s benefits will be reduced. When one spouse dies, the surviving spouse will receive the higher of the two benefits.

Whether you are still working is another factor to consider. Earning more than $19,560 while collecting Social Security means any benefits will be reduced. If you earn more than $19,560 in 2022 and are collecting benefits before your FRA, your benefit will be temporarily reduced by $1 for every $2 earned above the limit. When you reach FRA, then you can earn an unlimited amount with no reduction in Social Security benefits.

Talk with a financial advisor and your estate planning attorney for help maximizing lifetime social security benefits. If there are other income streams for the household, it may make sense to use those accounts for income and hold off on Social Security. But if funds are tight and you don’t expect to live a long life, it may make more sense to file for benefits earlier, rather than later. If you would like to learn more about social security, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: U.S. News & World Report (Aug. 26, 2022) “How to Calculate Your Social Security Break-Even Age”

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Less Restrictive Alternatives to Guardianship

September 27, 2022

The benefit of less restrictive alternatives to guardianships is that they don’t require court approval or judicial oversight. They are also much easier to set up and end.

The standard for establishing incapacity is also less rigorous than the standard required for a guardianship, says Kiplinger’s recent article entitled “Guardianships Should Be a Last Resort – Consider These Less Draconian Options First.”

Limited guardianships. A guardianship takes away an individual’s right to make decisions, just as full guardianships do, but they are specific to only some aspects of the person’s life. A limited guardianship can be established to manage an individual’s finances and estate or to control medical and health care decisions. These types of guardianships still require court approval and must be supported by a showing of incapacity.

Powers of attorney. Powers of attorney can be established for medical or for financial decisions. A second set of eyes ensures that financial decisions are well-considered and not harmful to the individual or his or her estate. A medical power of attorney can allow an agent to get an injunction to protect the health and well-being of the subject, including by seeking a determination of mental incapacity. A durable power of attorney for health care matters gives the agent the right to make medical decisions on behalf of the subject if or when they are unable to do so for themselves. Unlike a guardianship, powers of attorney can be canceled when they are no longer needed.

Assisted decision-making. This agreement establishes a surrogate decision-maker who has visibility to financial transactions. The bank is informed of the arrangement and alerts the surrogate when it identifies an unusual or suspicious transaction. While this arrangement doesn’t completely replace the primary account holder’s authority, it creates a safety mechanism to prevent exploitation or fraud. The bank is on notice that a second approval is required before an uncommon transaction can be completed.

Wills and trusts. These estate planning documents let people map out what will happen in the event they become incapacitated or otherwise incapable of managing their affairs. Trusts can avoid guardianship by appointing a friend or relative to manage money and other assets. A contingent trust will let the executor manage assets if necessary. For seniors, it may be wise to name a co-trustee who can oversee matters and step in should the trustor lose the capacity to make good decisions.

Speak with your estate planning attorney to explore if these less restrictive alternatives to guardianship work for your family’s situation. If you would like to learn more about guardianships, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Kiplinger (July 7, 2022) “Guardianships Should Be a Last Resort – Consider These Less Draconian Options First”

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There are Benefits to a QTIP Trust

September 26, 2022

There are some significant benefits to a QTIP trust. A Qualified Terminable Interest Property Trust, or QTIP, is a trust allowing the person who makes the trust (the grantor) to provide for a surviving spouse while maintaining control of how the trust’s assets are distributed once the surviving spouse passes, as explained in the article “QTIP Trusts” from Investopedia.

QTIPs are irrevocable trusts, commonly used by people who have children from prior marriages. The QTIP allows the grantor to take care of their spouse and ensure assets in the trust are eventually passed to beneficiaries of their own choosing. Beneficiaries could be the grantor’s offspring from a prior marriage, grandchildren, other family members or friends.

In addition to providing the surviving spouse with income, the QTIP also limits applicable estate and gift taxes. The property within the QTIP trust provides income to the surviving spouse and qualifies as a marital deduction, meaning the value of the trust is not taxable after the death of the first spouse. Rather, the property in the QTIP trust will be included in the estate of the surviving spouse and subject to estate taxes depending on the value of their own assets and the estate tax exemption in effect at the time of death.

The QTIP can also assert control over how assets are handled when the surviving spouse dies, as the spouse never assumes the power of appointment over the principal. This is especially important when there is more than one marriage and children from more than one family. This prevents those assets from being transferred to the living spouse’s new spouse if they should re-marry.

A minimum of one trustee must be appointed to manage the trust, although there may be multiple trustees named. The trustee is responsible for controlling the trust and has full authority over assets under management. The surviving spouse, a financial institution, an estate planning attorney or other family member or friend may serve as a trustee.

The surviving spouse named in a QTIP trust usually receives income from the trust based on the trust’s income, similar to stock dividends. Payments may only be made from the principal if the grantor allows it when the trust was created, so it must be created to suit the couple’s needs.

Payments are made to the spouse as long as they live. Upon their death, the payments end, and they are not transferable to another person. The assets in the trust then become the property of the listed beneficiaries.

The marital trust is similar to the QTIP, but the is a difference in how the assets are controlled. A QTIP allows the grantor to dictate how assets within the trust are distributed and requires at least annual distributions. A marital trust allows the surviving spouse to dictate how assets are distributed, regular distributions are not required, and new beneficiaries can be added. The marital trust is more flexible and, accordingly, more common in first marriages and not in blended families.

There are benefits to a QTIP trust and a marital trust. Your estate planning attorney will explain further how else these two trusts are different and which one is best for your situation. There are other ways to create trusts to control how assets are distributed, how taxes are minimized and to set conditions on benefits. Each person’s situation is different, and there are trusts and strategies to meet almost every need imaginable. If you would like to learn more about different types of trusts, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Investopedia (Aug. 14, 2022) “QTIP Trusts”

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Preparing for Retirement with a Special Needs Child

September 22, 2022

For parents of children with disabilities, the challenges of preparing for retirement with a special needs child are far higher than for families with healthy, high-functioning adults. Planning for your own retirement, while needing to secure the stability and basic needs of a child who will be a dependent forever often feels impossible, according to the recent article “Planning for Your Retirement, and for a Child’s Special Needs, All at Once” from The New York Times.

Even under the best of circumstances, where there’s plenty of money available and many hands to help, caring for an adult child with special needs is emotionally and physically challenging. As parents age, they have to address their own needs plus the needs of their adult dependent. Who will care for them, provide safe and comfortable housing and care for them when their parents no longer can?

Understanding the entire picture can be difficult, even for parents with the best of intentions. First, they need to understand how preparing for their retirement will be different than other families without a special needs child. Their investments need to be multi-generational to last not just for their lifetimes, but for their child’s lifetime. They can’t be too conservative because they need long-term growth.

In addition, special needs parents need to keep a certain amount of funds liquid and easily accessible, for times when their child needs a new piece of expensive equipment immediately.

One of the parents will often leave the workforce to provide care or take a lower paying position to be more available for care. This creates a double hit; the household budget is reduced at the same time its strained by costs not covered by benefits or insurance. Paying for gas to drive to therapy appointments and day program, buying supplies not covered by insurance, like adult diapers, waterproof bedding, compression garments to promote circulation, specialized diets, etc. adds up quickly.

Even with public health assistance, finding affordable housing is not easy. One adult may need supervised care in a group home, while others may need in-home care. However, the family home may need to be modified to accommodate their physical disabilities. With wait times lasting several years, many families feel they have no choice but to keep their family member at home.

Another challenge: if the parents wanted to downsize to a smaller house or move to a state where housing costs are lower, they may not be able to do so. Most of the public benefits available to special needs people are administered through Medicaid at the state level. Moving to a state with a lower cost of housing may also mean losing access to the disabled individuals’ benefits or being placed at the end of the waiting list for services in a new state.

For disabled individuals, maintaining eligibility is a key issue. Family members who name a disabled individual as a beneficiary don’t understand how they are jeopardizing their ability to access public benefits. Any money intended for a disabled person must be held in a specialized financial instrument, such as a special needs trust.

The money in a special needs trust (SNT) may be used for quality-of-life enhancements like a cellphone, computer, better food, care providers, rent and utilities among other qualified expenses.

There are two main categories of SNTs: first party trusts, created with assets belonging to the individual. Any money in this trust must go to reimburse the state for the cost of their care. Another is a third-party special needs trust, established and funded by someone else for the benefit of the disabled individual. These are typically funded by parent’s life insurance proceeds and second-to-die life insurance policies. Both parents are covered under it, and the policy pays out after the second spouse dies, providing a more affordable option than insuring both parents separately. Your estate planning attorney can assist you in preparing for retirement with knowledge that your special needs child’s future is secure. If you would like to read more about planning for families with a disabled loved one, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: The New York Times (Aug. 27, 2022) “Planning for Your Retirement, and for a Child’s Special Needs, All at Once”

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Options in Managing Unequal Inheritances

September 21, 2022

Estate planning attorneys aren’t often asked to create estate plans treating heirs unfairly. However, when they do it usually is because a parent is estranged from one child and wishes to leave him or her nothing. When it comes to estate planning, equal isn’t the same as fair, explains the article “Are Unequal Inheritances Fair?” from Advisor Perspectives. There are options in managing unequal inheritances in your estate planning.

An example of this can be seen in the case of a widow with four adult children who asked an estate planning attorney how to approach distributing her assets. Three of her children were high-income earners, already building substantial net worth. A fourth child had mental health issues, limited education, had been in and out of jail and was unable to hold a job.

She understood that her fourth child needed the financial stability the others did not. She wanted to provide some support for him, but knew any money left directly to him would be gone quickly. She was considering leaving money for him in a trust to provide a monthly income stream, but also wanted to be fair to the other three children.

The trust would be the best option. However, there were problems to consider. If the estate were to be divided in four equal parts, the fourth child’s share of the estate would be small, so trustee fees would take a significant amount of the trust. If she left her entire estate for him, it would be more likely he’d have funding for most, if not all, of his adult life.

The worst thing the mother could do was to leave all the funds for the fourth child in a trust without discussing it with the other three siblings. Unequal inheritances can lead to battles between siblings, sometimes bad enough to lead them into a court battle. This is often the case where one child is believed by others to have unduly influenced a parent, when they have inherited all or the lion’s share of the estate.

Sibling fights can occur even when the children know about and understand the need for the unequal distribution. The children may suppress their emotions while the parent is living. However, after the parent dies and the reality sets in, emotions may fire at full throttle. Logically, in this case the three successful siblings may well understand why their troubled sibling needs the funds. However, grief is a powerful emotion and can lead to illogical responses.

In this case, the woman made the decision to leave her estate in equal shares to each child and giving the three successful siblings the options to share part of their inheritance with their brother. She did this by having her estate planning attorney add language in the will stating if any child wanted to disclaim or refuse any of their inheritance, it would pass to a trust set up for the troubled sibling. This gave each child the opportunity to help or not.

Was it a perfect solution? Perhaps not, but it was the best possible solution given the specific circumstances for this family. Speak with your estate planning attorney about your options in managing unequal inheritances. If you would like to learn more about inheritances, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Advisor Perspectives (Aug. 22, 2022) “Are Unequal Inheritances Fair?”

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A Living Will is a Huge Benefit

September 20, 2022

Having a living will is a huge benefit for yourself and your loved ones. During a medical crisis, families frequently must make decisions quickly regarding whether to withhold or provide life-sustaining treatments. A living will is a part of advance care planning. It’s a legal document that provides specific instructions on how to carry out your wishes to receive or decline such treatments when you otherwise can’t communicate those wishes yourself, explains, Forbes’ recent article entitled “How Does A Living Will Work?”

Your estate plan may already include a durable power of attorney for health care, which is a legal document that lets your designated agent or proxy make medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated. However, unlike that document, the instructions in a living will can be used only when the person named in the living will has no hope of recovery or cure.

A living will provides limited authority to an agent on behalf of the principal who’s no longer able to communicate their preferences to withhold or withdraw artificial means of life support or life-sustaining treatments. A living will should have your wishes noted for receiving or going without treatment when your condition isn’t expected to improve and treatment would extend your life for only a limited time.

A living will is designed to apply only in very limited situations when the principal who signed the document has an incurable or irreversible medical condition or conditions that will most likely result in the principal’s death within a short period of time—typically six months or fewer.

Life-sustaining treatments addressed in a living will may include:

Ventilators
Heart-lung machines
Nutrition via a feeding tube
Hydration via feeding tube or IV
Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or other extraordinary measures; and
Dialysis.

Living wills can also address issues, like pain management and palliative care. You may even include provisions such as “I would prefer to die at home” in a living will.

Provide as much information as you can to make certain that your proxy isn’t making the decision for you, but rather your wishes and words are moving through your proxy. A living will is a huge benefit to your loved ones. The more information you can provide in your living will to your proxy to illustrate for them the type of care that you’d want to receive or decline, the better. If you would like to learn more about living wills and other medical directives, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Forbes (Aug. 18, 2022) “How Does A Living Will Work?”

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Ways to Minimize Your Probate Estate

September 19, 2022

Having a properly prepared estate plan is especially important if you have minor children who would need a guardian, are part of a blended family, are unmarried in a committed relationship or have complicated family dynamics—especially those with drama. There are ways you can protect your loved ones, and minimize your probate estate, as described in the article “Try these steps to minimize your probate estate” from the Indianapolis Business Journal.

Probate is the process through which debts are paid and assets are divided after a person passes away. There will be probate of an estate whether or not a will and estate plan was done, but with no careful planning, there will be added emotional strain, costs and challenges left to your family.

Dying with no will, known as “intestacy,” means the state’s laws will determine who inherits your possessions subject to probate. Depending on where you live, your spouse could inherit everything, or half of everything, with the rest equally divided among your children. If you have no children and no spouse, your parents may inherit everything. If you have no children, spouse or living parents, the next of kin might be your heir. An estate planning attorney can make sure your will directs the distribution of your property.

Probate is the process giving someone you designate in your will—the executor—the authority to inventory your assets, pay debts and taxes and eventually transfer assets to heirs. In an estate, there are two types of assets—probate and non-probate. Only assets subject to the probate process need go through probate. All other assets pass directly to new owners, without involvement of the court or becoming part of the public record.

Many people embark on estate planning to avoid having their assets pass through probate. This may be because they don’t want anyone to know what they own, they don’t want creditors or estranged family members to know what they own, or they simply want to enhance their privacy. An estate plan is used to take assets out of the estate and place them under ownership to retain privacy.

Some of the ways to remove assets from the probate process are:

Living trusts. Assets are moved into the trust, which means the title of ownership must change. There are pros and cons to using a living trust, which your estate planning attorney can review with you.

Beneficiary designations. Retirement accounts, investment accounts and insurance policies are among the assets with a named beneficiary. These assets can go directly to beneficiaries upon your death. Make sure your named beneficiaries are current.

Payable on Death (POD) or Transferable on Death (TOD) accounts. It sounds like a simple solution to own many accounts and assets jointly. However, it has its own challenges. If you wished any of the assets in a POD or TOD account to go to anyone else but the co-owner, there’s no way to enforce your wishes.

An experienced, local estate planning attorney will be the best resource to minimize your probate estate. If there is no estate plan, an administrator may be appointed by the court and the entire distribution of your assets will be done under court supervision. This takes longer and will include higher court costs. If you are interested in learning more about the probate process, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Indianapolis Business Journal (Aug. 26,2022) “Try these steps to minimize your probate estate”

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Planning for Long Term Care Is Important

September 15, 2022

Elder law attorneys have far too many stories of people who fail to plan, plan incorrectly or incompletely, or plan to fail by doing nothing at all, as described in the article “Elder Care: People in a pickle” from The Sentinel. Planning for long term care is important. Here’s a sad story.

A woman calls the elder law office because her husband fell at home—a common occurrence among the elderly. He was hospitalized and is now receiving rehabilitation in a nursing home. The treating physician recommends that the husband remain in the nursing home because he has significant limitations and his wife, who has her own medical issues, isn’t physically able to care for him.

The wife agrees. However, she has a host of challenges to overcome that were never addressed. The husband took care of all of the finances, for decades telling his wife not to worry. Now, she has no idea what their resources are. Can they afford to pay for his nursing home care? She doesn’t know. Nor does she have the authority to access their accounts, because there are accounts in her husband’s name only and she does not have access to them.

Her husband’s insistence of being the only one in control of their finances has put her in a terrible predicament. Without the estate planning documents to give her access to everything, including his own accounts, she can’t act. Can he now sign a Power of Attorney? Maybe—but maybe not, if it can be shown he lacks capacity.

If the couple cannot pay the nursing home bill, they have given their children a problem, since they live in Pennsylvania, where the state’s filial support law allows the nursing home to sue one or more of the children for the cost of their parent’s care. (This law varies by state, so check with a local elder lawyer to see if it could impact your family). Even if the wife knew about the family’s finances and could apply for public benefits, in this case his eligibility would be denied, as they had purchased a home for one of their children within five years of his being moved to the nursing home. Medicaid has a five-year look back period, and any large transfers or purchases would make the husband ineligible for five years.

If this sounds like a financial, legal and emotional mess, it’s a fair assessment.

Unexpected events happen, and putting off planning for them, or one spouse insisting “I’ve got this” when truly they don’t, takes a big impact on the future for spouses and family members. All of the decisions we make, or fail to make, can have major impacts on the future for our loved ones.

Other situations familiar to elder lawyers: a parent naming two children as co-agents for power of attorney. When she began showing symptoms of dementia, the two children disagreed on her care and ended up in court.

A father has guardianship for a disabled adult son. He promised the son he’d always be able to live in the family home. The father becomes ill and must move into a nursing home. Neither one is able to manage their own personal finances, and no financial or practical arrangements were made to fulfill the promise to the son.

No one expects to have these problems, but even the most loving families find themselves snarled in legal battles because of poor planning. Careful planning for long term care is important. It may not reduce the messy events of life, but it can reduce the stress and expenses. By choosing to exert some control over who can help you with decisions and what plans are in place for the future, you can leave a legacy of caring. If you would like to learn more about long term care issues, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: The Sentinel (Aug. 19, 2022) “Elder Care: People in a pickle”

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How Do Inherited IRAs Work?

September 14, 2022

With so much of America’s savings in IRAs, it’s important to know how these inherited accounts work. The recipient of an inherited IRA can spend their inheritance however they like. However, there are strict laws concerning how long money can remain in the inherited account, as explained in the article “Understanding Inherited IRAs” from The Motley Fool. Understanding options is crucial to avoid expensive penalties and minimize taxes. So how do inherited IRAs work?

An inherited IRA is a tax advantaged investment account a person opens to transfer the funds they’ve inherited as a beneficiary of a deceased’s retirement plan. The person opening the inherited IRA is known as the beneficiary. It’s usually a surviving spouse, child, other relative or friend. If there are multiple beneficiaries, they each must open separate inherited IRA accounts.

These accounts are used to transfer the inheritance to the new beneficiary. Beneficiaries may not make additional deposits into these accounts.

You could roll the funds into your own IRA if you are a surviving spouse. By rolling the funds into an inheritance IRA, you avoid paying taxes on the inherited funds and avoid taking required minimum distributions (RMDs) until your own retirement. The goal of an IRA is to avoid taking withdrawals to give funds extended time to grow. However, you can’t take any withdrawals until you reach age 59 ½ without incurring a penalty, unless the money is in a Roth account, and it’s been at least five years since you completed the rollover to your own IRA.

Withdrawing the funds as a lump sum is permitted. However, be prepared to pay a high tax bill, unless you’re withdrawing funds from a Roth IRA owned by the original owner for at least five years. If the owner didn’t have the account for at least five years, you’ve got a big tax bill to go with your big money.

Set up a five- or ten-year withdrawal plan. You can withdraw as much money as often as you’d like and in whatever increments you wish as long as the money is completely withdrawn by the end of the fifth or tenth year. If the account owner died in 2019 or earlier, you must follow the five-year rule.

Using the Life Expectancy Method determines your annual RMD by dividing the value of the inherited IRA by the distribution period for your age as listed in the IRS Single Life Expectancy Table. You can take more money out of the IRS if you like (and are prepared to pay taxes on the withdrawals). However, if you neglect to take out at least the RMD, you’ll receive a 50% penalty on the amount you should have taken.

If you inherit an IRA from someone who is not your spouse, you’ll need to know about many other rules. The most important one is this: you may not put the inherited IRA funds into your own IRA. Next, non-spouse beneficiaries wanting to use the life expectancy methods must meet one of the following criteria:

Inheriting funds from someone who died in 2019 or earlier
Are chronically ill or disabled
Are no more than ten years younger than the deceased account owner
Are a minor child of the deceased account owner, in which case they may use the life expectancy method but only until they reach 18 years of age.

The rules concerning Inherited IRAs are complex and mistakes can be costly. It is crucial that you understand how inherited IRAs work. Speak with an experienced estate planning attorney to help you gain access to the funds and protect yourself from penalties and avoidable taxes. If you would like to learn more about managing retirement accounts in estate planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: The Motley Fool (Aug. 18, 2022) “Understanding Inherited IRAs”

Estate Planning is critical for Blended Families

September 13, 2022

Today, a blended family is more common than ever, with stepfamily members, half-siblings, former spouses, new spouses and every combination of parents, children and partners imaginable. Traditional estate planning, including wills and non-probate tools like transfer on death (TOD) documents, as valuable as they are, may not be enough for the blended family, advises a recent article titled “Legal-Ease: Hers, his and ours—blended family estate planning” from limaohio.com. Estate planning is critical for blended families.

Not too long ago, when most people didn’t take advantage of the power of trusts, couples often went for estate plans with “mirror” wills, even those with children from prior marriages. Their wills basically said each spouse would leave the other spouse everything. This will would be accompanied by a contract stating neither would change their will for the rest of their lives. If there was a subsequent marriage after one spouse passed, this led to problems for the new couple, since the surviving spouse was legally bound not to change their will.

As an illustration, Bob has three children from his first marriage and Sue has two kids from her first marriage. They marry and have two children of their own. Their wills stipulate they’ll leave each other everything when the first one dies. There may have been some specific language about what would happen to the children from the first marriages, but just as likely this would not have been addressed.

It sounds practical enough, but in this situation, the children from the first spouse to die were at risk of being disinherited, unless plans were made for them to inherit from their biological parent.

Todays’ blended family benefits from the use of trusts, which are designed to protect each spouse, their children and any child or children they have together. There are a number of different kinds of trusts for use by spouses only to protect children and surviving spouses.

Trust law requires the trustee—the person who is in charge of administering the trust—to give a copy of the trust to each beneficiary. The trustee is also required to provide updates to beneficiaries about the assets in the trust.

A surviving spouse will most likely serve as the trustee when the first spouse passes and will have a legal responsibility to honor the shared wishes of the first spouse to pass.

If you and your new spouse have created a blended family, it is critical to evaluate your estate planning. Your estate planning attorney will be able to explain the many different types of spousal trusts, and which is best for your situation. If you would like to learn more about estate planning for blended families, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: limaohio.com (Aug. 20, 2022) “Legal-Ease: Hers, his and ours—blended family estate planning”

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Blog Articles

Less Restrictive Alternatives to Guardianship

There are Benefits to a QTIP Trust

Options in Managing Unequal Inheritances

A Living Will is a Huge Benefit

Ways to Minimize Your Probate Estate

Planning for Long Term Care Is Important

How Do Inherited IRAs Work?

Estate Planning is critical for Blended Families

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