Elder Law Issues

Perhaps you have created a revocable living trust. Likely, you have named yourself as trustee, with a carefully-selected successor trustee. But should you consider having your living trust include co-trustees?

Maybe you already have co-trustees — you and your spouse, perhaps. Then the question is slightly different: should you “promote” your successor trustee to serve as a third co-trustee?

Why would you do that? Primarily to avoid the necessity of later having to prove that you (and/or your spouse) are incapable of handling your own affairs. That could allow your designated successor to gradually take over financial functions. The alternative: you can wait until you have completely failed and then leave your successor trustee to pick up the pieces.

Are there risks? Yes, of course. But if you don’t trust your designated successor trustee, can we talk some more about your whole estate plan?

In this podcast episode, we’ll try to give you more information. Perhaps after you listen you will want your trust to include co-trustees.

You’re already thinking about your estate planning. Perhaps it’s time to update your five-year-old will and/or trust. Maybe you’ve never gotten around to taking care of this grown-up task. But in any case: have you dealt with your pets in your estate planning?

Many of our clients have strong attachments to their pets. Many assume they will outlive their well-loved companions. But that assumption is not safe to make.

Whether your pet is a long-lived variety (desert tortoise, anyone?) or just a youngster, there is a real chance that the animal companion you have now will outlive you. There’s also a real chance that you will acquire a new pet before you die, and that pet will become very important to you.

In thinking about your future, you should make sure you include your pets in your estate planning. We explain some of your options in this week’s podcast episode, and we’re happy to help our clients work through the choices.

Third-party SNTs (special needs trusts) are complicated to understand. Part of the confusion arises from the similarity of names. Self-settled (or first-party) special needs trusts are very different animals, but the similarity of names adds to the problem.

In this podcast episode, we try to demystify some of the issues around third-party SNTs. Join us for a top-level review of this complicated area of estate planning and trust law.

How frequent do you think will contests are? If you’re like most people, you almost certainly overestimate the frequency of probate, and only a small portion of those cases involve contested proceedings.

It’s difficult to succeed with a will contest. We talk about some of the issues. There are reasons will contests are so rare — and successful will contests far rarer.

A close family member has died, and you are in charge of administering personal property of the estate. How do you handle the challenge?

If your family member left a will, it might give you some direction. Many wills (in Arizona, at least) take advantage of the ability to make a list of personal items and who should receive them. That can help, too.

The common reality, though, is that most estates include personal property items that more than one person would like to receive. Often, there are items that no one in the family really wants. Still other items are hard to value, or expensive to ship, or poorly described. In most estates, administering personal property is a difficult — and too often thankless — task.

Last week, our podcast episode focused on planning for distribution of your own personal property. This week, join us for a discussion of the job of handling the personal property after the death of a family member.

Your estate plan usually includes a will, a health care power of attorney and a financial power of attorney. It might also include at least one trust — perhaps more if you have a child with special needs, or a complicated financial situation. Which is your most important document?

You might also have partnership agreements, LLC documents, and more. You probably have also signed beneficiary designations of several different kinds. Other experts might focus on one or more of those different documents.

Your estate plan might be complicated. For many of our clients, their estate plan is fairly straightforward (though we may resist calling it “simple“). But it almost certainly includes several separate documents. Join us for a discussion about which of those is actually your estate plan’s most important document.

We’ve written — and talked — about different types of special needs trusts over the past week. One term that we frequently hear is “supplemental benefits” trusts. Are they same thing as special needs trusts? Are they even recognized in Arizona?

In this week’s podcast, we try to demystify the supplemental benefits trust. Join us for our review of the terminology.

You can also check out this week’s newsletter. We try to explain the whole concept of the self-settled special needs trust.

Do you have questions about special needs trusts (or, for that matter, supplemental benefits trusts)? We can’t give individualized legal advice online or in our podcasts, but we might be able to answer your general questions. At least we can point you to some resources.

There are different types of special needs trusts. That should not be surprising — but the effect sometimes is. Besides that, the differences can generate plenty of confusion.

Host Robert Fleming and guest Elizabeth Noble Rollings Friman, partners in the Tucson elder law firm of Fleming & Curti, PLC, discuss the differences and some of the effects. Join us for the discussion.

In earlier podcasts, we have discussed why you might want to create an irrevocable estate plan, and how you might go about it. This time our focus is different: can you modify your irrevocable estate plan?

Perhaps you and your first spouse set up a plan a decade or two ago, shortly before your spouse died. Now your circumstances are vastly different from those at the time of your estate plan. Can you make any modifications?