In the spirit of educating, I’m very excited to share my LIVE radio interview on KSFO, and their sister station KGO, from the Greg O’Donnell Financial Hour broadcast on February 25, 2017. My twenty minutes of fame explained the importance of having an estate plan, what to think about when choosing your executor or trustee, why it’s very important to…
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l8u1l8j1htcf3cd/TGODFH%20w-Kirsten%20Howe%202017.02.25.mp3?dl=0
“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” (Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare, b. Apr. 23, 1564, d. Apr. 23, 1616) People do some strange things with their last wills and testaments, and Shakespeare was no exception. One item in William Shakespeare’s will, for example, is often cited…
April 16th is National Healthcare Decisions Day, a day dedicated to “ensuring that all adults with decision-making capacity in the United States have the information and opportunity to communicate and document their healthcare decisions.” Our firm is in complete support of such a goal. In fact, we include a Health Care Directive as an important component of each estate plan…
The second law of thermodynamics states that: “the entropy of an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.” What this means for our purposes is that things are always changing (unless you’ve reached absolute equilibrium, in which case you have my hearty congratulations). When your life changes,…
Most of us would like to think we’re leaving behind more than just a financial estate when we pass away. We’d like to think we’ve impressed our values upon our children and grandchildren as well, giving them a foundation of knowledge and belief to serve them when we’re not there. The good news is that creating a thoughtful and comprehensive…
It is not that uncommon for relatively younger children to receive large sums of money and property from their parents’ estate. This may or may not be a good idea in some situations. If both parents or a surviving parent dies, what kind of restrictions should be placed on an inheritance? The question is more acute if a child…
I do a lot of presentations before groups and one of the most common questions I am asked is “How often do I need to update my estate plan?” As with just about any question asked of an attorney, the answer is, “It depends.” It depends on both changes in the law, both federal and state, and it depends on…
In some cases, the home may pass by will to children and other heirs, incurring burdensome estate taxes. In other situations, it may become a source of conflict or become part of a forced sale to settle debts or taxes, and in some cases it may pass uneventfully tax-free to the intended heirs. When transferring a vacation home to your heirs,…