Elder Law Issues

Succession Planning for Family Businesses requires careful preparation to balance retirement needs, business value, and family dynamics. A business owner must first assess personal financial security, especially when they have reinvested profits instead of building savings. Determining the company’s true value, evaluating income potential, and understanding all tangible and intangible assets, such as equipment, intellectual property, or business goodwill, is essential before transferring ownership. Proper valuation ensures both the owner’s retirement needs and the business’s long-term stability are met.

Heirs may have different skills, interests, or goals, so owners must address potential conflicts early and make clear, informed decisions. Open communication and setting expectations help reduce misunderstandings and prepare heirs to take on management or ownership roles. Advisors, including CPAs and legal counsel, guide owners through tax planning, business structuring, and risk reduction. Planning for incapacity is equally important, so a trusted individual can manage daily operations if the owner becomes unable to do so.

Owners should avoid rushing decisions or relying on informal arrangements. Instead, they should follow a gradual, deliberate process. By gathering accurate financial information, evaluating multiple strategies, and involving trusted advisors, owners can ensure a smooth transition, protect family relationships, and preserve long-term business success. Thoughtful succession planning safeguards both the owner’s legacy and the future growth of the family business.

Planning For Digital Assets

This episode explains how digital assets affect modern estate planning. Digital assets include social media accounts, online banking profiles, investment platforms, cryptocurrency wallets, and other online accounts. Many of these accounts hold financial or personal value. Because people manage much of their lives online, these assets often become an important part of an estate.

The discussion describes the challenges fiduciaries face when they manage digital accounts after someone dies. Personal representatives and trustees must contact the companies that control each account. Every platform sets its own rules and terms of service. These rules often limit how someone can access an account. State laws allow fiduciaries to request access to digital assets. However, companies still decide whether they will provide that access.

Planning ahead is also identified as an important step. Creating an organized list of digital accounts helps fiduciaries locate and manage them. Reviewing estate planning documents also helps ensure they address digital property. Careful planning helps families reduce confusion and avoid legal or administrative problems.

There are many myths regarding estate and trust administration. Trust administration is quick, easy and flexible. Probate is expensive, slow and a hassle. Google and AI assistants are often quick to confirm these myths. They are trained on data that frequently contains references to misconceptions about these processes.

In this podcast we discuss the most pervasive myths in the estate and trust administration business. Our goal is to paint a more realistic picture of the estate and trust admin process and clear up confusion that these myths often cause. It is also important to note that we are an Arizona law firm and so the misconceptions we discuss will be from an Arizona law perspective.

Planning for emergency hospitalizations is not something people like to think about, and different document types can cause confusion. What is the difference between health care powers of attorney, advance directives and DNR forms? Where should these documents be stored? Should you register you documents with the Arizona Health Care Directive Registry? What is “code status”? How should your medication lists be handled? Have you thought about who will care for your pets?

In this podcast, we discuss all of these points to provide some general advice for emergency planning from a case management setting. Planning for emergency hospitalizations can be daunting, but we hope you’ll consider doing so after listening in.

What are ILITs and Crummey Trusts? You may have heard of these terms for various trusts before. They can be a bit of a pain to administer for beneficiaries and successor trustees, but they are powerful tools that can help ease tax pains later.

In this podcast we explore how ILITs and Crummey Trusts differ from standard revocable trusts and when they might be useful when crafting an estate plan.

We do enjoy history, so just a word of historical context. D. Clifford and Ethel E. Crummey created the trust that would immortalize their surname in 1962. It took six years for the IRS challenge to the trust to make it through the court system. But Mr. and Mrs. Crummey’s trust, as it turned out, was neither crummy nor crumby. And, though it was not an eyelet, it was an ILIT.

Long Term Care Advice

Everyone hopes to never need long term care, and as a result many do not plan for it until it becomes necessary. Fortunately, options exist for both private and government assisted care. In this podcast we discuss some of the benefits and qualifications for government assistance like Medicaid, as well as the positives for sticking with private care.

Veterans benefits can make a large difference for veterans; however, did you know that surviving spouses of veterans may also qualify for benefits? Some people may may not realize that they also qualify for additional benefits, such as aid and attendance. We discuss these benefits and some of the qualifications that a veteran or their spouse will need to meet.

In this podcast we are joined by our friend Marsha Goodman, a certified Elder Law Attorney located in Phoenix, Arizona.

Estate planning with minor children can have challenges that many people do not realize. At least in Arizona, minors cannot collect inheritances or open bank accounts… they cannot even direct their parents to do so on their behalf. As a result, leaving an inheritance to minor children outright can be a very costly mistake. In addition, minors cannot serve as your agent in powers of attorney.

This is why various mechanisms exist to provide for minor children after death. In this podcast we discuss some of these mechanisms so you can avoid the challenges of estate planning with minor children.

The death of a loved one is already a very uncomfortable situation, and the last thing anyone wants to do is deal with a Social Security office right after.

Fortunately, you do not have to go to their office. In this podcast we discuss who handles reporting of deaths to Social Security. We also discuss the Social Security benefits that should be expected after a loved one’s death.

Declining to Serve as Trustee (and other roles)

It is very easy for people to feel obligated to serve in a fiduciary role if they have been nominated. Roles such as trustee, agent or personal representative require a great deal of responsibility and work. Fulfilling these roles can be confusing, tiring and frustrating.

Fortunately, if you have been nominated you do not have to serve. Fiduciary roles are not obligatory, and, in this podcast, we discuss the option of declining to serve as trustee. We also touch on resigning as trustee if you decided to serve but then became overwhelmed.