Planning for natural disasters is more than just stocking up on canned food and water. In a natural disaster, food and water will keep you alive, but how will you rebuild your life if your home and community are devastated? Learn how families can plan for natural disasters with some simple tips that will help you get back on your feet should disaster strike.

Make sure you have enough insurance. Basic homeowner’s insurance typically won’t cover damage caused by natural disasters like floods or earthquakes. You might need to purchase additional insurance to cover these types of events. If you’d like an objective review of the types and amounts of insurance you have, contact us, we can help.

Keep a thorough inventory of what you own. Having up to date information on your personal belongings—especially valuables—will make getting them replaced using your insurance claim easier. Pictures of your belongings stored in the cloud is one great way to handle this in advance of any natural disasters.

Create a financial plan. Natural disasters can be financially disastrous as well. You may not be able to return to work and could face the expense of repairing—or rebuilding—your home.

Plan well to ensure you can meet your expenses and make a financial recovery. Account for your insurance deductibles, which can be 10-20% of the total damages and have six month’s salary in savings to cover any gaps in your ability to earn an income.

Protect important information by making digital and hard copies. Put a copy in a fireproof/waterproof safe and give copies to friends or family that reside outside of your area for safekeeping.

It’s also a good idea to work with us. A Personal Family Lawyer® has unique tools that can safeguard your information to make recovering from a natural disaster easier even when you’ve lost everything.

Follow standard safety recommendations. Keep enough non-perishable food and water for your family for 3-5 days. Consider investing in a generator. Build a first-aid kit, and learn CPR as a family.

Keep a comprehensive emergency kit with contact information, survival tools, and a change of clothes for your family members. Designate a meeting place all family members can get to in case your home is wiped out. And talk with your family about what to do in different scenarios.

Families who have someone watching out for them can recover more quickly from natural disasters. Working with us can ensure you have someone waiting to assist you when you face tragedy. A Personal Family Lawyer® can help you with the legal, financial, and insurance issues you face after a natural disaster and help you properly account for losses on your tax return. Schedule online today.

If you have pets, you probably want to make sure they are well-taken care of, if anything happens to you. Unfortunately, wishing for their good fortune isn’t enough. Too many animals are abandoned when their owners die and face rehoming, life in an animal shelter, or worse. Tip: create a pet trust.

To make sure your furry friend is taken care of when you become incapacitated or upon your death, you can leave assets for their care and custody. The best way to leave your faithful companion assets is to set up a pet trust.

Create A Pet Trust

With a pet trust, you can create certain rules for how the trust’s funds can be used. You can name a trustee—the person who will control and manage the funds—and a caregiver for your pet. By having a trustee manage the funds, you can be ensured the caregiver will only benefit from them if they are used according to the rules of the trust.

Another way people leave money and instructions for the care of their pets is with a will. But wills cannot ensure the funds are used in the way you want them to be, nor do they ensure the caregiver will care for your pet. A person who is left a pet in a will can turn around and leave the pet at a shelter and pocket the money left to them for their own use instead.

Leaving your pet assets is easy with a pet trust. But trust creation can be complicated, and working with a lawyer to develop the terms of the trust is highly recommended.

If you are ready to create a pet trust, start by sitting down with us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can walk you step by step through creating a pet trust and other legal resources to ensure your loved ones are taken care of. Our Personal Family Lawyers® offer Estate Plan Strategy Sessions that help you protect and preserve your wealth for future generations. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what matters most to you, and what your wishes are when you die. Schedule online.

Self-made millionaires are not uncommon in the dotcom era, but their fortunes pale in comparison to those of the ten richest families in America. These families weren’t overnight successes, but their fortunes have stood the test of time and are the result of strong family ties and very smart estate planning.

The Ten Richest Families in America and Their Rise To Riches

1. Walton ($130 Billion)

One of the richest families in the U.S. and the world, the Walton family enterprise is now in its third generation.

2. Koch ($82 Billion)

Despite contentious litigation over business interests between Koch’s four sons, the company still stands as the second largest privately owned company in the U.S.

3. Mars ($78 Billion)

The Mars family lobbied for the elimination of the estate tax, a key move considering the fortunes that can be nearly cut in half by the 40% estate tax.

4. Cargill-MacMillan ($49 Billion)

This family has 14 billionaires on the family tree.

5. Cox ($41 Billion)

Although the family got its start in media, diversification has helped the Cox family grow its fortune over the years.

6. S.C. Johnson ($30 Billion)

In its fifth generation of family ownership, this multinational brand is now a household name.

7. Pritzker ($29 Billion)

The Pritzker family is well known for its use of trusts to avoid taxes before it became common practice. Good planning pays off.

8. Johnson ($28.5 Billion)

The Johnson family holds a 49% ownership of this mutual fund company, with the founder’s granddaughter now at the helm as CEO.

9. Hearst ($28 Billion)

What started as a newspaper company passed from father to son in 1887 grew into the media conglomerate we know today.

10. Duncan ($21.5 Billion)

The Duncan family turned a $10,000 investment in 1968 into its current net worth of $21.5 billion. Not bad for a family enterprise.

6. S.C. Johnson ($30 Billion)

In its fifth generation of family ownership, this multinational brand is now a household name.

These families can help put your own financial trajectory in perspective. Are you on the right track? Are you making the most of your money? Significant wealth isn’t out of reach for even the humblest of beginnings; it just takes good planning.

If you’re ready to create a wealth plan for your family, start by sitting down with us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can help you plan for your family. Our Estate Plan Strategy Session guides you to protect and preserve what matters most. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what’s most important to you, and what you can do to make the most of your money.

The Pitfalls of DIY Wills: Lessons Learned from a Florida Probate Case

DIY wills are becoming more prevalent as legal services can now be accessed easily online. For better or worse, more and more people are turning to online services to meet their legal needs, maybe even you.

Here’s what you need to know before you decide to create your own will, using an online service, or even a cheap lawyer for that matter.

While these online companies are making legal services more accessible, they’re also doing their customers a disservice, as evidenced in the recent case of In re: Estate of Aldrich heard in a Florida appeals court.

Ms. Aldrich created her will using a downloaded template from E-Z Legal Forms without the advice and guidance of an estate lawyer. It appears that she wished to leave specific assets to her sister, and then to her brother, if her sister died before her. Her sister did die, after which Ms. Aldrich did not properly update her will.

The assets named in the will went to Ms. Aldrich’s brother, but the template she used did not include a residuary clause, which establishes where unnamed assets should go. There was no way for Ms. Aldrich to know that this was missing from the Will because she was not a lawyer, nor was she truly educated about such matters. Most people are not, nor should they be. As a result and without a residuary clause, the unnamed assets Ms. Aldrich acquired after the creation of the will passed under Florida’s intestacy laws and into the hands of her nieces, children of another pre-deceased sibling, instead of to her brother, as she seemed to have wanted.

This, of course, after a long, expensive and unnecessary court battle between the nieces and Ms. Aldrich’s brother.

Services like E-Z Legal Forms do not provide personal legal advice or ongoing legal support. Had Ms. Aldrich worked with an estate lawyer to craft—and then update—her planning, she would have left her brother an inheritance of love, rather than a nightmare of time, money and heartache.

This is an important lesson to learn because people too often create their will without having a lawyer review it and then forget to update it as loved ones pass on and new assets are acquired. In the end, their wishes aren’t honored because they weren’t clearly defined, leaving the matter in the hands of the probate court.

If you’re ready to develop a sound estate plan that will leave a legacy of true love, start by sitting down with one of us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can help you with your legal planning needs. Our Estate Plan Strategy Session guides you to protect and preserve what matters most. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what’s most important to you, and what you can do to ensure your family is taken care of.

Setting up a trust fund for your children can ensure that the money you are leaving behind for them is taken care for them, in the way that you want. But your efforts in completing this important, yet somber task can be ruined by making one of these common mistakes.

Leaving Assets Outright to Kids

One of the worst things you can do is to do nothing, which means that whatever you are leaving behind will go to your children outright, unprotected and directly to them when they turn 18. But, worse than that, it means that a Court will decide who handles the assets for them (and whoever is named as their guardian) before they turn 18. And, it’s very likely that those assets will not be used in the way you want. On top of that, if a professional Trustee is appointed, the costs of handling the assets could drain what’s left for your kids, quickly.

Not Carefully Choosing a Trustee

Even parents who do the right thing and set up a trust to hold what’s being left behind for their kids sometimes do not think carefully enough about who the Trustee should be taking care of the assets. Do you want one trustee or a co-trustee who can ensure the funds are well managed? Choosing more than one can provide some accountability for how the funds are used.

Not Properly Protecting Assets Left In Trust

Another mistake parents make when setting up a trust is distributing the assets out of the trust direct to their children at specific ages or stages, instead of holding those assets in a flexible lifetime trust that will protect their kids’ inheritance from future divorces, creditors or accidental lawsuits.

Unfortunately, most lawyers do not understand how to use trusts to establish this kind of vital protection for the inheritance you are leaving behind. And they may even suggest to you that it’s not necessary, if you have a smaller estate. I believe that even when you are leaving behind a small amount of assets, protecting those assets and teaching your children how to grow them (instead of squander them) can be the seed of a huge turning point for many generations to come. It would be my honor to share more about this with you during a Estate Plan Strategy Session.

Neglecting To Fix Beneficiary Designations

Lastly, make sure your insurance policies are directed to your trust and not directly to your children. This is a huge mistake we repeatedly see. Naming minors or even young adults as the beneficiaries of insurance and retirement accounts is a sure-fire way to ensure they are not used in the way you want and unnecessarily get stuck in a court process, which you can easily avoid.

A trust can both provide for and protect your children after your death, as well as ensure you are cared for the way you want in the event of your incapacity. If you’re ready to set up an effective plan for your family’s well-being and care, start by sitting down with us.  As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we’ll help you protect, preserve and enhance what matters most. Schedule online.

When you come into a cash surplus from a company bonus, a tax refund, an inheritance or something similar, you might find yourself having to decide what to do with the money you receive. So, what do you do when you’re faced with this difficult question: What to do with surplus cash: pay down debt, spend or invest?

Did you know that most people who win the lottery lose their winnings within 5 years? In fact, 70% end up bankrupt.

Why would that be? Well, it’s because they don’t know how to answer the question asked here regarding what to do with surplus cash. As a result, they make their investment and spending and gifting choices on their own with no guidance at all, and are surprised to discover how quickly millions can disappear.

So, let’s start there. Depending on the amount of your cash surplus, consider consulting with one or more trusted advisors on what to do with the extra money. We often act as objective counsel for our clients, so feel free to call to discuss options.

If it’s not a large sum, but you still want to make sure you are doing the right thing with the extra cash, consider these factors:

1. If you have debt that is higher interest than what you could earn with a fairly straight-forward investment, paying off your debt could be the highest leverage use of your funds.  Be sure to be tracking each of your debts on a credit tracking worksheet so you can see at a glance whether to allocate extra cash to pay down debt OR if you should keep that money in play because the cost of your interest is low relative to what you can be earning with other investments.
2. If you have a business that has additional capacity, and you know how to drive more sales with additional investments, you may want to put the money back into your business and ramp up revenue. Be careful though that you are not driving more sales without the capacity to deliver OR that you are not putting money into marketing when you don’t know how to convert your leads into buyers. If that’s the case, you may want to invest in developing sales systems in your business, which always pay off once you get it right. If you do have a business, you may want to inquire with us about an Estate Plan Strategy Session, if we have not looked at your business together yet.
3. If you don’t have debt, and you don’t have a business, you may want to consider investing in a business that you can run on the side (if you have extra time) as an additional source of revenue, diversifying your income and reliance on a job controlled by someone else. Side hustles are a great way to use your downtime to create more income for your family.
4. If you’re out of debt, don’t have a business, and don’t need a side hustle, consider maxing out your retirement account. And looking into turning your retirement account into a self-directed account, so you can use the funds in your retirement account to invest in things like real estate, or cryptocurrency, and use your extra cash + some of your time to start to get interested in the best ways to activate your retirement account rather than just having it invested in an ETF that you are totally disconnected from.

Finally, if you’ve got all that handled, consider a trip with your family of origin or your chosen family that will build and strengthen family bonds. Before you go, be sure to come in and meet with us for an Estate Plan Strategy Session to ensure all of your ducks are in a row, in case anything happens while away.

If you are ready to plan for your future wealth, start by sitting down with us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can walk you step by step through creating a legal plan that will help you make great decisions during life by looking at what happens in the event of your death. Schedule online.

Yours, mine and ours … in today’s modern family, it’s oh so common. The blended family is the product of 2nd (or more) marriages, in which one or more of the parties comes with children from a prior marriage. And then, they may even go on to have children together. So, how can legal planning help build a strong blended family?

If you have or are part of a blended family, it’s important to understand how estate planning could be exactly what you need to keep your family out of conflict and in love, both during life, in the event of incapacity, and when one or more of the senior generation (read: parents) dies.

Let’s begin with an understanding of where potential conflicts could arise when you have a blended family.

If you have children from a prior marriage, and you become incapacitated or die, leaving everything to your new spouse or partner, there is almost certain to be some conflict (whether spoken or not) between your children and new spouse.

Your children may feel unloved, forgotten or resentful.

You may think that this can be avoided by leaving everything to your new spouse or partner, and then on his or her death, to your children. But this too could set up a scenario where your children feel the need to monitor your spouse/partner’s use of your assets, during his or her life. And that may not be what you want.

Conversely, you may have a partner or spouse that you have not planned for, who you would want to inherit some or all of your assets. But, as things stand right now, your entire estate may go to your children from a prior marriage. This could create a reality where your current partner even gets kicked out of the house you share, if something happens to you before your plan is updated.

You can avoid all of this (and even use the estate planning process to build stronger bonds) by having clear planning in place that has been discussed with your children and your new spouse or partner. We facilitate this as part of the planning process for all blended families.

You can avoid all of this (and even use the estate planning process to build stronger bonds) by having clear planning in place that has been discussed with your children and your new spouse or partner. We facilitate this as part of the planning process for all blended families.

If you are the child of a parent who has remarried or repartnered, after a divorce or death, of your other parent, you may want to bring these issues to your parent’s attention.

If you are ready to create a well thought out estate  plan for your blended family, start by sitting down with us. A Personal Family Lawyer® can help you plan for the needs of your unique family. Our Estate Plan Strategy Session guides you to protect and preserve what matters most. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what’s most important to you, and what you can do to ensure your family is taken care of. Schedule online.

While the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage in the U.S. making it possible for people of all sexual orientations to marry, many modern couples (of all genders and sexual orientation) still choose against marriage. If you’re wondering, “should I legally marry or not?,” read on.

If you are in the inquiry around whether to legally get married, be sure to consider these important factors:

If you are partnered and unmarried, you need financial and legal protections in place, to ensure you and your loved ones are taken care of if you become incapacitated or when you die.

While legally married partners need many of the same financial and legal protections in place, the law does provide some defaults that will provide protection and access to a “legal” spouse that are not given to an unmarried partner.

Imagine this: your partner is hospitalized and you can’t get access because you aren’t married. Or your partner needs a family member to make important legal or financial decisions, but it can’t be you because you aren’t considered a relative without marriage. If you decide you don’t want to get married, do call us to get you the legal documentation you’ll need to validate and protect your rights.

For legally married partners there are default legal provisions providing for a spouse in the event that their spouse dies without a Will in place. While these legal provisions are generally not sufficient or do not match what you would want, at least there is something in place for your spouse. As an unmarried partner though, you would have no legal right to anything belonging to your significant other.

Imagine this: you and your partner live together, but your partner is on the lease or the owner of the home and your partner becomes incapacitated or dies. You could lose your housing while also grieving your partner’s illness or death. Legal documentation can fix this.

When you are considering marriage, remember that legal spouses can file taxes jointly, whereas unmarried couples cannot. And there can be some serious tax savings and benefits that could make marriage quite attractive. Conversely, getting married could negatively impact your tax situation.

Here’s the bottom line: if you are committed to your partner, and want your partner to make legal and financial decisions for you and to have access to some or all of your assets in the event of your incapacity or at the time of your death, whether you get married or not, you need legal and financial planning that ensures your partner has easy access to everything you choose.

Whether you choose to get married in the eyes of the state, legally, or just in front of your friends, family and community, contact us as you decide what to do so we can support you to plan well. That’s what we do for you and your family.

If you’re ready to ensure your loved ones have the legal benefits and financial protections they deserve, consider sitting down with us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can help you with your legal planning needs. Our Estate Plan Strategy Session guides you to protect and preserve what matters most.  Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you more financially organized than you’ve ever. Schedule online.

Planning Pays Off: An Illustrative Look at Carrie Fisher’s Semi-Failed Estate Plan

Whether your estate is modest or movie star worthy, the value of a good estate plan, properly handled, cannot be underestimated. A comprehensive plan can mean the difference between an expensive and unnecessary “time spent in court headache” for your loved ones or an easy “in your lawyer’s office” transition that allows your family time to grieve in peace.

When a high profile celebrity passes away, we can learn a lot about the value of careful planning when using their estate plan as a case study.

Carrie Fisher is one of the celebrities whose proactive, yet faulty, planning gives us an excellent example to illustrate some key points that are important for you to understand for your family.

Even though Carrie Fisher worked with some of the best (read: most expensive) lawyers in Los Angeles, and she had created a trust to hold her assets, her estate plan failed, in our opinion, because it didn’t keep her assets out of court and passing privately to her heir, Billie Catherine Lourd.

Instead, Fisher’s lawyer created a Trust, and never ensured Fisher’s assets were transferred into the Trust. And while you may think this is malpractice on the lawyer’s part, it’s actually common practice.

We see this all the time when clients come to us with prior prepared estate plans — they’ve got beautiful documents that will not work when their families need them because their assets were never properly inventoried and transferred.

Fisher’s death brings this major issue in estate planning to light. As a result, Fisher’s Trustee, Dennis King, had to file a petition in probate court seeking to have Fisher’s assets transferred into her Trust.

The whole point of creating a Trust is to keep your family out of court and keep your affairs totally private.

Because Fisher’s Trust was not properly funded (the legal terminology for making sure your assets are transferred into Trust so you can keep everything private and out of court), all of her assets and who will receive them have been made public.

As a result, we know that Fisher left her estate to her daughter, Billie Lourd, and that it included cash accounts, several LLCs, real estate, a life insurance policy, personal belongings, and intellectual property rights. Having this information public leaves Lourd at risk. Unscrupulous parties now have access to details they wouldn’t otherwise know.

This is exactly why a key part of our planning process is a thorough inventory of your assets, ensuring your assets are transferred into your trust (if you choose to keep your family out of court) and then a review of your assets and planning documents at least every three years, if not annually.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of court and save your family precious time and money in the process. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, start by sitting down with us, your Personal Family Lawyer®. And, if you already have a plan in place, contact us to have it reviewed.