Wills

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There are two types of Surrogate’s Court Petitions that often give a lot a value. These are:

Petition to Compel Production of a Will and Petition to Compel an Accounting. These are proceedings that can be used when you are trying to get things going and nothing is happening.   Not only are these petitions relatively…

Basic definition – A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other asset for another person.

When doing Wills or handling Estates, we are often talking about fiduciaries.  A…

What happens if someone involved in an Estate is dead?  These situations are very common.  A few standard approaches apply….let’s look at a few situations:

The most important distinction to know is that PRE-deceased situations are very different than POST-deceased situations.  When I refer to “PRE” and “POST” I am talking about when the person…

When I do Wills for clients, I always discuss the option of doing Living Wills and Health Care Proxies.  I consider these so important, and so fundamental to proper practice, that I offer them at no additional charge.  Here are the basics:

LIVING WILL – This is a person’s written declaration that if they are…

When I am discussing the possible preparation of a Will, I ask a series of questions that follow a general framework.  This tends to bring all the issues to the surface in a logical way.  I respect that people often want to just “tell me what they want the Will to say”, and that very…

Sometimes family members feud.

Sometimes it’s irreparable (in the eyes of the participants…..I would always beg to differ, but that’s another story).

Sometimes thoughts of money and mortality will lead a person to take action.

So they make a will….with one main purpose…..to make sure that “X” doesn’t get anything.  Sometimes there are related purposes,…

Who REALLY ought to make a Will?

If you are considering whether you need to or not, the answer to this question starts with a question…..

“Who would inherit from you if you did not make a Will?”

When I interview someone who is considering making a Will, the first issue I explore is THAT.  …

In the last post I set forth a few “little things” that affect the probate process.  These things impact the complexity, timing and expense that may be involved.  Here are a few to consider:

1. A Will that is not attorney prepared and/or supervised.  Putting aside possible lack of clarity with a non-attorney will, there…

When we “probate” a Will, we are having the Court recognize it as official and proper. The Court then grants “Letters Testamentary” to the Executor, giving the appointed person authority to act.

When looking at a probate proceeding, a few basic elements will determine how simple or complicated the proceeding is going to be.

Here…

To understand things that would add complexity to probating a Will, it is useful to look at what an ideal (and easy) probate looks like.  The complicated situations occur when one or more of these simplifying factors are missing, or when some troubling variation is in play.

In an ideal situation, we have the following:…