Estate Planning

Planning for the unexpected

Planning for the Unexpected

If there is one thing the pandemic has taught us is that we need to plan for the unexpected. Planning for life’s unexpected events, whether it’s welcoming a new family member, coming into an inheritance, or dealing with an illness, is at the heart of what an estate plan does. 

What is a Will?

Everyone who owns anything should have a will. A will puts you in charge of directing others to distribute your wealth according to your wishes upon your death. Without a will or other estate plan, you will have no control and the state’s rules determine who gets what after your death. For many reasons, the creation of a will is about passing your wealth to your loved ones after you pass. A will can put your wishes down on paper and direct a selected person to carry out your desires exactly as expressed. 

Schedule a consultation with Attorney, Feliz Martone to learn more about how to get your own will or trust set up.

Estate Planning For the Newly Married

Now is the perfect time to start working on an estate plan—because, as newlyweds, you may not have a list of your accounts, but you’ve effectively just done a working inventory of your possessions—as you’ve figured out how to consolidate two households into one. You’ve already been working on the new banking and shared responsibility of bills and taxes and so forth. Use all that time and energy and work as a leapfrog into planning for your future—so you’ll be that much more prepared for the house, the kids, and the next stages of your new life together.

Three Celebrity Probate Disasters 

One would assume that celebrities with extreme wealth would take steps to protect their estates. But think again: some of the world’s richest and most famous people enter the pearly gates with no estate plan, while others have made estate planning mistakes that tied up their fortunes and heirs in court for years. Let us look at three high-profile celebrity probate disasters and discover what lessons we can learn from them. 

A Tale of Two Celebrities: Chadwick Boseman and Eddie Van Halen

This year, the deaths of two significant celebrities—the international rock superstar Eddie Van Halen and the global acting phenomenon Chadwick Boseman—provide examples of key considerations in this process. In some ways, these men could not be any more different; however, they serve as a lesson that all of us should have an estate plan in place to protect the ones we love.