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You met with a lawyer and set up your estate plan to protect yourself in case you become incapacitated and to provide for your family. Many people simply stick the documents in a drawer and forget about them, but doing so can cause results you never intended down the road, because of changes in the law or developments in your life. This article explains when you should review your estate plan to make sure that it will serve its purpose.

You should take out your estate plan and read it again at regular frequencies or when significant life events happen. You should also sit down with your

If you have never bought a house or other real property in the state of New York, you might not realize that it is illegal for your real estate agent or broker to prepare the sales contract or provide any legal advice about the agreement. While it is standard practice for the agent or broker to draft the sales contract in some other states, New York law requires the buyer or seller (or their attorney) to write the agreement.

A New York real estate attorney can help you if you are wondering whether you really need an attorney to buy a house.

Q: Are your children ready to inherit your wealth?

New York and New Jersey estate planning attorneys assist clients with comprehensive estate plans designed to distribute the wealth they’ve accrued during their lifetimes to the people and/or charities that matter most to them. Generally, the beneficiaries include their children, whether minors or adults. But what happens if the children are not prepared to effectively manage and grow that inheritance?

Most people with minor children have a will that not only names the people they want to be the children’s

Q: What are asset protection trusts?

Many people venture off to their first appointment with a New York or New Jersey estate planning attorney thinking they will come out of it with a last will and testament-- commonly known simply as a “will”. But that isn’t always the case. In fact, a comprehensive estate plan will likely include several additional documents.

Q: How can having a special needs child impact a parent’s estate and retirement planning?

It’s no secret that having a child with special needs often presents parents with financial and other challenges. Unlike other parents whose financial responsibility to their children generally ends in their early 20s once they’ve left the nest, special-needs parents often house and provide financial support throughout adulthood – – sometimes until their own passing.

Therefore, parents must consider their special needs children when doing their retirement and estate planning and should seek advice from a skilled New York and New Jersey estate planning attorney.

Many of us view insurance as a necessary evil. The monthly premiums can be painful to see debited from your account. They can often total up into the thousands each year when you consider how many policies you have. You may have health, dental, auto, homeowner, life, long-term care, disability, and other policies to pay for. The benefits, however, can be substantial when you find yourself in need of them.

When you start a new job, your boss makes you fill out forms about your retirement account and any employer-provided life insurance. You write someone’s name in the “beneficiary” box, then forget about it. Years go by, and you do not think about revisiting those beneficiary selections. In that time, you might have opened other accounts that require the designation of a beneficiary.

Many people give little thought to the person or persons they name as beneficiaries of their accounts and insurance policies, and seldom, if ever, update those selections.
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For many parents, talking with their children about money is as stress-provoking as talking with them about the birds and the bees. The parents procrastinate, and many never get around to talking with their kids about how to manage their money. As estate planning lawyers, we see people who reach adulthood and do not have a clue about paying bills, budgeting, or keeping enough money in their bank account to cover their spending.
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Q: What are advanced directives and why they are important in a pandemic?

The global pandemic has caused a sense of urgency in people without a comprehensive estate plan. Many people know what a last will & testament is, even though less than one in three people have had one drawn up according to a study by Caring.com.

While it’s important to have a will drafted, Read more . . .

Q: Should I divide my estate equally among my children?

At one point or another during childhood – and even in adulthood – parents with multiple children have likely been accused of favoring one child over the other(s). While this kind of sibling rivalry is natural and generally harmless, how parents distribute an inheritance to their children can actually have serious consequences.

New York and New Jersey estate planning attorneys watch clients struggle with how to handle leaving an inheritance to multiple children.
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Lending money to a family member could be a beneficial thing, or it could harm your relationship with that person for many years. The odds are that the relationship will get damaged permanently. Some financial experts advise that you should only lend money to a relative if you are willing to sue that person. While that guidance might sound harsh, you should protect yourself from adverse tax consequences and losing the money forever.

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