In today’s digital age, legal forms can be found in the click of a few buttons and downloaded for a relatively small fee. As a result, people often think that there is no real need to retain the services of an attorney for many legal matters. While this may be true in some cases, when it comes to estate planning, nothing could be farther from the truth. Here’s why:

Estate planning is complicated. Often numerous goals must be considered at the same time when creating an estate plan.

State laws vary. Wills, trusts and estates are governed by state law, meaning that the law in one state may not be the same as in another. Generic forms may not account for the changes in state laws.  Also, decisions affecting family  members are best discussed with a qualified estate planning attorney who is skilled in tax law, trust law, probate law, as well as dealing with family members.

Laws change. Laws of all kinds are subject to change. Laws relating to wills, trusts and estates change often, making generic forms outdated in many cases.

Estate planning requires an understanding of not just the law, but state and federal taxes as well.

An error in your Last Will and Testament could cause your estate to be distributed under state intestate succession laws which could bear no resemblance to your actual wishes.

Trusts are not “one size fits all”. Although you may be able to get a general idea of how a trust works without the help of an estate planning attorney, deciding which one is right for your needs is not that easy.

There is no second chance in estate planning. By the very nature of the purpose of an estate plan, by the time it is discovered that a mistake was made you may no longer be here to correct the mistake.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

While you are alive, you have the option to create an individualized estate plan that reflects how you want your estate handled upon your death. If you fail to create an estate plan, then you have effectively acquiesced to the “government estate plan“. By not executing a Last Will and Testament prior to your death, your estate becomes an intestate estate. An intestate estate is handled according to the intestate laws of the state where the decedent was a resident at the time of death. So what does the government estate plan include?

For starters, the government estate plan typically requires your entire estate to be handled through the legal process known as probate. This can tie up your estate assets for months, leaving then inaccessible to loved ones.

Part of the intestate process requires the court to determine who the legal heirs to your estate are. Your legal heirs may not be the same people that you wanted to leave your assets to. For example, your girlfriend of 20 years is not a legal heir in most cases.

The government estate plan also requires an inventory and valuation of your estate assets. It could also include selling estate assets, even if they had sentimental value to you. Other decisions the court may make for you include who administers your estate (for a fee)and who is appointed as guardian of minor children.

Finally, the government plan will often cost more in administrative,  legal fees and often bonding fees  than you would have spent creating your own plan that could have avoided this entire process.

Your Estate Plan guarantees your choices.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you were rich and famous you would guard your money closely right? One of the first things you would do is create a comprehensive estate plan to ensure that your money would go to the people you want it to go to in the event of your death right? Most of us like to think so, but a shocking number of the rich and famous die intestate, without leaving behind even a simple Last Will and Testament to indicate how they want their estate assets handled after death. For example:

Bob Marley: The man who put reggae music on the map died after an eight month long bout with cancer, yet did not see fit to create a Will prior to his death. After his death, alleged children, mothers of those children and various relatives filed claims to his estate estimated to be worth $30 million at the time.

Michael Jackson: Although a Will was eventually located, it initially appeared as though the King of Pop died intestate. Jackson’s mother even filed probate documents claiming that her son died intestate (without a Will).

Howard Hughes: The eccentric billionaire who was worth in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion when he died in 1976 failed to leave behind a Will. Although one was produced after his death, it was later determined to be a forgery. Eventually, 22 cousins inherited Hughes’s fortune.

Pablo Picasso: The famous artist died at the age of 91 leaving behind homes, cash and artwork valued in the millions, but did not leave behind a Will. Six years later, at an estimated cost of $30 million, his estate was settled.

Certainly none of us would like to leave our families in this disarray.  That’s why it’s important consult with a qualified Estate Planning Attorney.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Divorce and remarriage in America is a common occurrence these days. If you are planning to be remarried in the near future, and have assets and/or children from a previous relationship that will be part of your new blended family, then you have likely given a considerable amount of thought to how to create a harmonious blended family. The issue of how to address your finances once you are remarried is an important issue that should be resolved long before you actually walk down the isle. Along with deciding how you and your future spouse will handle day to day money matters, you should also discuss how your estate plans will change once you are married.

Some assets you may wish to keep separate even after marriage. Assets such as family heirlooms or inheritance money that you feel should be left to any pre-existing children in the event of your death may be better off left separate and distinct from assets that you choose to combine with your new spouse. You should also be very clear in your estate plan what you wish to happen to those assets upon your death.

Other assets, however, may be better suited to co-mingling with your new spouse. By converting financial accounts or titles to jointly held, or pay on death accounts, your new spouse would have almost immediate access to those accounts in the event of your death instead of having to wait for the probate process to terminate. Be sure to talk to your estate planning attorney to find out what the benefits and drawbacks will be to converting accounts and titles before deciding to do so.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Your legacy is what you leave behind when you die. Although the wealth you have accumulated during your lifetime is certainly part of your legacy, your legacy may encompass more than simply your accumulated wealth. Your ideals and principles are also part of your legacy. If you fail to create a legacy plan while you are still here to do so then you lose out on the opportunity to define the legacy that you leave behind.

Your legacy plan is essentially an extension of your basic estate plan. A basic estate plan determines who will receive your assets upon your death; however, it may stop there. A legacy plan first looks at how you can preserve and increase your wealth now as well as provide for your golden years. It then takes into account the loved ones, family members and causes that are important to you and determines how to create a legacy for those people and causes that will continue long after your death.

With a legacy plan you can do much more than simply transfer your assets when you die. Often, directly transferring assets to a family member or loved one is not a good idea — particularly if the beneficiary does not know how to handle finances well. With a legacy plan, you can create trusts that will allow you to dictate the terms under which your assets can be used as well as preserve assets for generations to come. You may also wish to provide for a cause that has special meaning for you through the creation of a charitable trust. Your legacy is yours to create, so take the time now to do so.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

You have likely heard how important it is to save for your retirement since you starting working. Likewise, you probably starting stashing as much money as possible as soon as your started working. There is certainly no debate that saving for your retirement is essential; however, if you end up significantly over-funding your retirement you can run into another problem as a result. If you have significant assets left at the time of your death as a result of over-funding your retirement accounts, those assets can be subject to income taxes or estate taxes — or both. Given the often high rate of both income and estate taxes, you could lose over 50 percent of your estate assets to taxes upon your death.

While experts can be easily found who claim to know how much we need to save in order to live a comfortable retirement, the truth is that there are simply too many variables to know how much you will actually need. This uncertainty typically requires people to err on the side of caution and save more. If, however, you are lucky enough to remain relatively healthy until the day you die and do not have any significant financial emergencies, you still have a large portion of your retirement left when you die.

Although leaving the remainder of your retirement to a spouse does avoid estate taxation pursuant to the unlimited marital deduction, this also results in over-funding your spouse’s estate in many cases. When your spouse dies, there may then be an even bigger sum of money and assets subject to taxation without careful estate planning. There are, thankfully, ways to avoid, or at least decrease, your tax exposure if you have over-funded your retirement. The key is to start planning early with your estate planning attorney just as you started planning early for your retirement.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If philanthropy is an important part of your life, then you should consider making it an important part of your estate plan as well. Your estate plan allows you to provide for your family and loved ones in the event of your death. That same plan can allow you to provide for the causes that are important to you long after your death as well. Only a lengthy consultation with your estate planning attorney can determine how best to incorporate your charities into your estate plan; however, there are some universal key points about charitable giving that are important to understand.

You may choose to provide a direct gift through your Last Will and Testament to the charity of your choice; however, a trust frequently offers probate and tax advantages that a direct bequest does not as well as more flexibility than a direct gift.

A charitable trust can be either a living trust or a testamentary trust.

If you establish a living trust, and distributions are to be made while you are still alive, then the trust will typically need to be an irrevocable trust.

The most common charitable trusts fall into one of two main categories — lead and remainder trusts

A Charitable lead trust provides income to a trust for a specific period of time and then gives the remainder to non-charitable beneficiaries, such as family members.

A charitable remainder trust provides income to non-charitable beneficiaries, such as family members, for a specific period of time, or life, and then gives the remainder to a charity.

A portion of the value of assets used to fund the trust may qualify as a current deduction for income tax purposes.

The amount that passes to a charity may qualify for an estate tax deduction upon your death, decreasing estate tax exposure.

You may be able to avoid paying capital gains taxes on assets that are used to fund a charitable trust.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Nebraska has recently introduced legislation that may be the first of its kind in the country aimed at allowing the executor of an estate access to social media accounts of a decedent. If passed, the legislation will give the executor of an estate the right to access and control accounts for sites such as Facebook or Twitter, as well as e-mail accounts and micro-blogs, that were held by the decedent.

At the present time, what happens to a social media account when a person dies is largely up to the policy of the site administrators. Facebook, for example, creates a memorial tribute on the account holder’s page when notified by family members of the death of the account holder. According to the Facebook policy, “friends” of the deceased may continue to post comments on the decedent’s wall, but no one can log-on to the account, post status updates, or make any other changes to the account. If the Nebraska legislation passes, the executor of the decedent’s estate will be allowed to do so in the future. The same concept applies to other social media, e-mail and micro-blog accounts.

The proposed legislation highlights how the concept of “assets” has drastically changed in lieu of the increased reliance on digital media and communication. As technology changes, changes are required to keep up. Most of us would not have even considered the need to include plans for e-mail accounts or social media accounts in our estate plan ten years ago; however, as the proposed legislation points out, we may all wish to do so now.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

With the death of singer and actress Whitney Houston last week, sales of anything related to the performer immediately began to soar. Unfortunately, as is often the case when a substantial estate is involved, signs of trouble surrounding Houston’s fortune began shortly after her death as well.

Once considered unstoppable in her professional career, Houston’s personal life seemed plagued with troubles from the time her professional career began to skyrocket. Houston’s tumultuous relationship with singer Bobby Brown finally ended in divorce in 2007; however, that may not be the end of the battle between Houston and Brown. The couple had only one child — 18 year old Bobbi Kristina — who stands to inherit most, if not all, of Houston’s estate.  While Bobbi Kristina is old enough to inherit from Houston’s estate directly, we may see a battle over who will be appointed as Bobbi’s conservator, and have control over her inheritance.

Reports are that Houston’s family was reluctant to invite Brown to the funeral based on fears that he would make an attempt to get close to Bobbi Kristina as a way to eventually control any inheritance left to her by her mother. It is believed that Houston did leave behind a Last Will and Testament; however, that alone may not be sufficient in the absence of a trust to determine who will ultimately control the assets left to Bobbi Kristina.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

To those who have no experience with estate planning, some of the terms used can make the process seem like it’s written in a foreign language. Though unfamiliar, most of these terms are not difficult to understand. However, some terms are interchangeable and may have slightly different meanings depending on how they are used or the state in which you live. Talk to an attorney if you have specific questions about the any estate planning terminology.

Estate: If you take everything you own and lump it all together, this is your estate. Some people confuse the term estate to mean a large home or property. While this version of the word is sometimes used to describe such properties, in estate planning circles the term is more generally used to refer to all a person’s property.

Testator:  The term  “testator” is often used to refer to both males and females who create a Last Will and Testament , much in the same way “actor” is used to refer to both male and female performers.

Holographic Will: A holographic will has nothing to do with a hologram or an image. It is a kind of will in which the testator creates the will entirely in his own handwriting. Unlike other wills, testators do not have to have a holographic will witnessed by others in order for it to be legal.

Intestacy: If a person dies without a will, that person is said to have died intestate. Intestacy is the condition of an estate that is not covered by a will. To resolve who receives the estate property, each state has intestacy laws that apply in this situation.

Executor: When you create a will, you typically nominate a person who will actually redistribute property after you die. This person is known as an executor, if male, and an executrix, if female. Some states may use executor as a gender-neutral term, though the position may also be referred to as an estate administrator or personal representative.

Levine & Furman, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.