Massachusetts Estate & Life Planning Attorneys

Former Billionaire Dies with Nothing / Estate Planning Attorney North Central Massachusetts

Normally when people have billions of dollars, they do not lose it all. It is difficult to lose that much money in one lifetime. However, that may have happened to one man who was once the second richest man in Russia.

At one point Boris Berezovsky was believed to be the second richest tycoon in Russia. However, he found himself at odds with Vladimir Putin and eventually left the country.

Recently, he was found hanged to death in the United Kingdom. Given who he is and the circumstances of his life, there is some mystery surrounding his death. Some people believe that he committed suicide, but his family believes that he was killed for criticizing Putin.

Interestingly, the coroner's report is uncertain about the cause of death.

Another surprise.

Now, it appears the Berezovsky's UK estate is worth nothing, not even a single penny, as the Daily Mailreports in "Russian 'billionaire' Boris Berezovsky found dead in bath last year left nothing in his will after dying penniless."

What is not known is where all of the money went or where it may yet be held. Is it in unknown offshore trusts and bank accounts?

Berzovsky also died without an estate plan. Consequently, if his estate did have value its eventual distribution would be determined by UK courts.

This is an unusual case as it is not often that a billionaire loses absolutely everything.

Still, it is difficult to draw too many lessons from it, as it is not yet clear what happened to the money. Nevertheless, it is never a good idea to not have an estate plan and leave things up to the government to sort out.

Reference: Daily Mail (November 22, 2014) "Russian 'billionaire' Boris Berezovsky found dead in bath last year left nothing in his will after dying penniless"

Avoiding Trust Mill Peddlers / Leominster Estate Planning Lawyer

There are some businesses designed to sell estate plans that have no business doing so. They will use non-attorney sales people to talk you into buying a trust that you do not need. These businesses are called trust mill peddlers.

People often want to learn about estate planning and what they can do to protect their assets after they pass away. Knowing this, there are some businesses that will purport to offer free estate planning information. However, the real purpose is not to give out free information.

The real purpose is to get people face to face with salesmen who will convince the victim to purchase an estate plan from the business.

As the Times Herald points out in "Trust mill peddlers are alive and well," these offers are nothing more than a way to get you to buy an over-priced standard trust form.

The whole process starts off innocent enough. The businesses often start out by sending out a mailer asking if you are interested in learning about estate planning. If you are, then the mailer instructs you to fill out a provided response card and they will send you a free book.

When the business receives the card, they call you and offer to have the book personally delivered to your home by a representative or they invite you to a free seminar where you can learn about estate planning.

The original article includes a helpful list of warning signs that you might be dealing with a trust mill peddler.

The list includes:

• Informational meetings that include a free meal.
• Mailing cards to your home offering free information.
• Sending non-attorneys to your home to talk about estate planning.
• Businesses that try to sell you an estate plan and also offer other services, such as insurance, mortgages and tax help.

If you want to get an estate plan done right, you need to see an experienced estate planning attorney. Do not be fooled by a trust mill peddler!

Reference: Times Herald (November 22, 2014) "Trust mill peddlers are alive and well"

What You Can NOT Do in a Will / Wills and Trusts Lawyer North Central Massachusetts

Generally speaking people can do whatever they want in their will sand the court will enforce their wishes. However, there are some controversial things that are done in wills that a court might disallow.

People have been known to do all sorts of strange things with their wills.

Some people attempt to control the behavior of others through the provisions in their wills and others seek to punish people for slights or out of spite. Most of the time, however, courts will enforce these provisions.

On the other hand, some things are so controversial that a court might not enforce them.

Recently, the Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog published a list of things courts generally do not allow in an article titled "Controversial Will Provisions."

The list includes:

• Disinheriting a Spouse - The law does not allow you to disinherit a current spouse. Instead it provides for a spousal elective share. That means that a spouse can elect to either take what was left to him or her in the will or they can take a fixed percentage of the assets in the estate.
• Encouraging Divorce - Inheritances cannot be conditioned on someone getting a divorce. Courts view any such provisions as anti-marriage and against public policy.
• Limiting Marriage Choice - Although some courts have allowed it, generally you cannot attempt to force another person to only marry other people of a particular religion.

If you have questions about anything that you can or cannot do with your will, be sure to talk to an experienced estate planning attorney about them.

Reference: Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (November 13, 2014) "Controversial Will Provisions"

Keeping Control of Your Estate Plan / Leominster Estate Planning Lawyer

People who have earned wealth want to maintain control of it. However, they often choose estate planning tools that deprive them of that control or they mistakenly believe that alternative estate planning tools would deprive them of control.

If you have earned your own wealth, then the last thing you want to do is turn that wealth over to someone else while you are still alive and competent to handle the wealth. However, sometimes people do exactly that with their estate planning choices.

For example, people will often give a family home to a child or name the child as the joint owner in an effort to avoid probate.

Bad idea.

As Forbes points out in a recent article titled "Never Give Up Control When You Create Your Estate Plan," when someone does that, they lose control of the home. If they want to do anything with it, they will need permission and can be denied.

The article also points out that many people are afraid to get a trust and name someone besides themselves as the trustees. Why? Because they think they will lose control of the assets in the trust.

This might be the case if the trust is some form downloaded from the Internet, but such is not the case with a properly drafted trust. If the trustee is not doing what you want, you can fire the trustee and appoint someone else.

When creating your estate plan, talk to your estate planning attorney about control. Ask who will be in control of each estate planning vehicle.

If control is important to you, make sure that you are the one who keeps it!

Reference: Forbes (November 13, 2014) "Never Give Up Control When You Create Your Estate Plan"

Can an Inheritance Be Stolen? / Probate and Estate Administration Attorney Leominster

A new lawsuit in New York brought by an ex-wife claims that a second wife stole the inheritance of a deceased attorney's minor children.

As I have noted before, whenever someone gets remarried and changes his estate plan to favor his new wife, there can be bitter feelings between the new wife, the old wife and the children. This is especially true if the new marriage took place while the deceased had cancer and the estate plan was changed in the hospital.

Such is the allegation regarding the estate of Harry Goldsmith, as recounted in a New York Post article titled "New gal 'stole' kids $1.5M inheritance: ex."

Goldsmith was a prominent trial attorney in New York. In 2010, he divorced his wife with whom he had three children. He started dating another woman in 2012.

Goldsmith was then diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and married the woman he was dating. Three months later, while Goldsmith was in the hospital, his ex-wife alleges that the new wife brought lawyers to the hospital to rewrite Goldsmith's estate plan in a way that favored herself and effectively deprived his own children of their rightful inheritance.

Whether or not the allegations turn out to be true, this case highlights that even attorneys can make legal mistakes.

If Goldsmith wanted to rewrite his estate plan, he should have done so immediately after getting remarried. This was especially true as he was diagnosed with a potentially terminal disease and did not have time to wait.

Reference: New York Post (November 10, 2014) "New gal 'stole' kids $1.5M inheritance: ex"

Preserving Estate Planning Documents / Estate Planning and Administration Worcester County

Once you have an estate plan, it is extremely important that the original documents in the plan be preserved so that they are available after you pass away. If the originals are not preserved, there can be serious consequences.

Before a will can be submitted to probate, the original will must be located. If the original will cannot be found, it is assumed to have been revoked if the deceased was the last person known to have been in control of it.

Why?

This is because a will can easily be voided by tearing it up or throwing it in the fire. The law assumes that the deceased did something like that. This makes the safe storage of wills extremely important. The question then becomes where to store your will?

In an article titled "Estate Planning: Importance of original estate planning documents," Lake County News suggests that a bank safety deposit box is a good place to store your original will and other estate planning documents.

While that is true, it comes with a caveat.

Someone else needs to be on record at the bank having lawful access to the box. Otherwise, the bank will require a court order to grant access.

Ask your estate planning attorney where he or she suggests you store your important estate planning documents. Some attorneys are happy to keep the originals for their clients, while other attorneys are reluctant to assume that liability.

If your attorney does not provide that service, then he or she likely will know a safe place in your area.

Reference: Lake County News (November 15, 2014) "Estate Planning: Importance of Estate Planning Documents"

Avoiding Fights in Blended Families / Leominster Estate Planning Lawyer

The rise in blended families, when a person remarries and has children from a previous marriage, has led to a corresponding rise in those families fighting over estates. While these fights cannot always be avoided, there are ways to minimize their possibility.

When a parent with adult children remarries, it is often difficult to devise an estate plan that pleases both the new spouse and the children. Both the new spouse and the children can easily feel slighted. This is particularly true if there is other tension between them such as bitterness over the marriage itself.

This has led to a lot of fighting over estates.

Recently, Bloomberg published a list of ways to help minimize the chances of these fights in an article titled "Ways That Blended Families Can Avoid Bitterness."

The Bloomberg list includes:

• Focus on Fairness - An estate plan needs to be fair to both the new spouse and the children from the previous marriage. Neither should feel they have been cheated out of a rightful inheritance. Look for ways to provide for the spouse while at the same time ensuring that the children receive a timely inheritance.
• Trust in Trusts - Trusts can be an excellent way to ensure a steady stream of income for the spouse, while leaving the remainder to the children after the spouse passes away. However, if the children and the spouse are close together in age, it might be necessary to ensure that the children receive some of the income from the trust more quickly.
• Keep Documents Updated - When you get remarried make sure the beneficiaries on retirement accounts and life insurance accounts are up to date.

If you have any questions about minimizing conflicts over your estate in your blended family, schedule an appointment with an experienced estate planning attorney.

Reference: Bloomberg (November 10, 2014) "Ways That Blended Families Can Avoid a Wealth of Bitterness"

Inheriting Land / Leominster Estate Planning and Real Estate Attorney

One of the more difficult aspects of estate planning is how to handle real estate. This is because how the real estate is inherited can have important tax considerations for the heirs.

Quite often when people inherit land, they wish to sell it afterwards. For example, if you leave your home to your children and they already have homes of their own or live in different parts of the country, they will normally want to sell that home.

Whether or not you mention that possibility in your will has important tax consequences for your children as mentioned by FOX Businessin a recent article titled "How to Deal with Disputes Over Inherited Land."

As the article notes, if the sale of the land is directed in the will with the proceeds to be split between any heirs, then the land is still treated as property of the estate and any taxes are paid by the estate. There is also a step up in basis benefit for capital gains tax purposes.

However, if the sale is not directed in a will, then the heirs have to pay the taxes out of their respective shares of the proceeds.

Finally, if one person is left the property and decides to sell it to give the proceeds to the others, there are gift tax issues that need to be considered.

When leaving any type of land to your heirs, you need the assistance of an experienced estate planning attorney to make sure it is done in a manner that will minimize potential taxes.

Reference: FOX Business (November 4, 2014) "How to Deal With Disputes Over Inherited Land"

How to Disinherit a Child / North Central Massachusetts Estate Planning Attorney

Parents have many different reasons for wanting to disinherit one of their children. Whatever the reason, it is important to consider a few things when disinheriting a child.

Although it is always a painful decision, some parents feel like they have no other choice but to disinherit a child. If that is the choice you want to make, then know that there are good ways to go about doing so and there are bad ways to do it.

Recently, the Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog, published a list of things to consider when disinheriting in a post titled "Do's and Don'ts When Disinheriting."

Here is the list from that post:

• Do Consider a Skip Bequest - If the child you wish to disinherit has children, you might want to leave an inheritance for those children (i.e., your grandchildren) directly. If the grandchildren are still minors, you can leave the inheritance in a trust.
• Do Consider an Incentive Trust - If the reason for wanting to disinherit a child is behavioral, you can use a trust that only gives money to the child for the appropriate behavior.
• Do Document Your Decision - Leave some type of recording of your decision and why. This will make it more difficult to challenge later on.
• Don't Neglect to Name the Child in Your Will - If you leave the child's name out of your will completely, the court will assume that you simply made a mistake and redivide your estate to include the child.
• Don't Rely on a No Contest Clause - Someone who does not stand to inherit under your will is not stopped by a no contest clause from challenging your will.

See an experienced estate planning attorney if you have questions about disinheriting a child. This is not a do-it-yourself project.

Reference: Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (November 9, 2014) "Do's and Don'ts of Disinheriting"

When Changing a Will Causes Family Strife / Leominster Estate Planning Lawyer

It is normally a good idea to tell your family how you plan to distribute your assets in your estate plan. It is a good way to help prevent fighting later on. However, what happens when you later change your mind and your family already has plans about how to use their inheritances?

Estate planning attorneys normally advise their clients to communicate with their children about what kind of inheritance to expect and to even explain the reasons certain arrangements are being made. This approach can help eliminate the possibility that siblings will later fight with each other in court over their inheritances.

On the other hand, if the parents later decide to change their estate plans, then that can cause issues as well.

A recent column in the Washington Post, titled "Carolyn Hax: A late change to dad's will is causing resentment," is an example of just such a case.

It seems a father had planned to distribute his assets between his five children. However, three of those children had taken out loans against their inheritances. Now, the father changed his will to forgive those loans and to distribute whatever is left equally between all children. As you might expect, the siblings who did not take out a loan from the father are feeling some resentment.

A simple solution to this situation does not exist.

If you do decide to change your estate plan after telling your children about your plan, it is very important that you tell them about the changes. If they were expecting one thing and are surprised by something else after you pass away, family fights are almost guaranteed.

An experienced estate planning attorney can help you communicate your intentions, as well as provide ideas to avoid resentment over an inheritance among your children.

Reference:  Washington Post (November 6, 2014) "Carolyn Hax: A late change to dad's will is causing resentment"