Michigan Estate Planning Blog

The Team Behind a Successful Estate Plan

 

 

Most advisors stick with their areas of knowledge. The estate planning attorney drafts the necessary documents, your CPA files tax returns and the investment advisor fine tunes assets. However, coordinating these professional silos is critical to ensuring your estate plan works, says a recent article from Forbes, “Your Estate Plan Must Be Coordinated To Work.”

Communication needs to extend past advisors to key loved ones and people you name in roles, such as agents, trustees and executors. Many people find these discussions awkward. However, preparing heirs and fiduciaries for their roles and setting expectations is a crucial step to avoid issues during transition periods. Some of the most significant estate planning problems arise when the baton is passed, such as if you fall and become incapacitated. You need to be sure your agents know what is expected of them and when they will be called upon to perform their respective tasks.

Coordinating advisor actions will save time and expense in the long run. Your estate planning attorney, CPA, trust officer, wealth advisor and insurance broker should know what each other is doing on your behalf. Many people shy away from doing this because of concerns about cost. However, not doing it can lead to much larger expenses.

You want to foster coordination and collaboration, in a controlled and cost-effective manner. One way to do this is to have advisors prepare a summary of key points, facts and decisions following your meetings, so you can circulate it to other advisors. This way they all know what is being done and can share their knowledge and experience if they think something is wrong or won’t work as planned.

One example of what can happen when advisors are not coordinated is paying bills from incorrect accounts. For instance, if you incur legal fees for the estate plan but pay them from a trust account or business entity, a creditor could argue this is a personal benefit from a trust you are not a beneficiary of, or you’ve violated the business purpose of an entity, which could expose all trust or entity assets.

Your estate planning attorney should know how your assets are titled, which are owned jointly, or other designations used to avoid the terms of your will and/or any trusts. Beneficiary designations, wills and titles must be planned and coordinated to avoid derailing your estate plan.

If you die and an asset is owned in your name only, the asset will go through probate and be distributed according to the terms of your will. If you are incapacitated, your agent, under your financial Power of Attorney, must act concerning the asset to help pay bills.

Many people opt to have assets held in a joint name so that on death, the asset will pass to the named joint owner without going through the will and probate. If the person named as the joint owner is not the same as the POA, you may have created a logistical nightmare. How will the POA pay bills if the joint owner does not cooperate?

Coordinating professional advisers is as important as coordinating family members. There are many different agents and positions to be appointed. People often sign a financial POA with their estate planning attorney, and no one looks closely at any conflicting appointments.

The same kind of issues occur with health care agents. There are several different health care documents, and you’ll want to coordinate them to eliminate the possibility of conflicting appointments. The key to achieving this is diligence, communication and follow-up.

Reference: Forbes (Oct. 31, 2023) “Your Estate Plan Must Be Coordinated To Work”

 

Selling the Family Home When Moving into New Living Situation

 

When an aging relative decides the time is right to move into an assisted living or continuing care facility, families face many decisions. This is often a difficult but necessary step for older individuals with trouble living independently or planning for their future needs. A recent article from Herald—Standard, “How to handle selling a home when moving into an assisted living facility,” offers suggestions to help families navigate the process.

First, speak with an estate planning attorney to have a trusted, responsible family member be named Power of Attorney. Individuals moving into assisted living may not have any cognitive problems at the time of the move. However, selling a home for a family member who develops dementia can present complex challenges. Only a person with legal capacity may transfer their home to a new owner. Having a Power of Attorney allows a family member to step in and manage the transaction without needing to go to court and have a guardian named.

Talk about the situation and the sale with the aging family member. They will need time to process the idea of selling their home and moving. Homeowners make untold sacrifices and compromises to buy and maintain their homes, so the decision to sell a beloved home is almost always very difficult and brings out a range of emotions.

Throughout this process, an open and honest dialogue about what can be achieved by selling the home and improving their quality of life will be helpful.

Sorting through belongings is an extremely hard task. A lifetime of memories and a loss of their independence are all wrapped up in the contents of a home. It will be impossible to take the entire contents into a one or two-bedroom apartment. Take the time to sort through belongings with your family members and select certain items to give them a sense of home in a smaller space.

If possible, try to pass on some items to younger family members. Most importantly, handle this process with as much compassion as possible.

Keep all relevant people involved and current throughout the process. This is particularly important if the family members are scattered in different states. Adult children who live far away and can’t be active participants in this process shouldn’t be dismissed and left out. Open communication with other family members will minimize the chances of objections when the sale and move take place.

Finally, because this is perhaps the largest and last financial transaction, make sure the sale of their home is done with an eye to their estate plan. There may be ways to minimize tax exposure for the individual and their estate plan. Confer with an estate planning attorney to avoid any missteps.

Reference: Herald-Standard (Oct. 27, 2023) “How to handle selling a home when moving into an assisted living facility”

Should You Gift Kids Inheritance Now, or After You’ve Passed?

 

This is a genuine dilemma facing millions of parents and grandparents as they prepare to pass an enormous amount of wealth—$73 trillion—to the next generation. There are pros and cons to both approaches, according to the article, “Give the Kids Their Inheritance Now or Make Them Wait? 3 Things to Keep in Mind,” from Barron’s.

Giving too much too early could put parents in an economic bind in their later years. Therefore, this needs to be considered in light of today’s longer life spans. However, if you can afford to make a generous gift and your children could use the money now for a good purpose, it’s hard to justify making them wait.

How much to give is as critical as when to make the gift. The predominant concern is if you give your children too much, they won’t be motivated to earn their own wealth, or other family members will resent the gift. Estate planning attorneys and financial advisors routinely speak with families about these issues. These conversations always consider the values they want to instill in their children.

In some cases, parental support can help a child while working at an entry-level (i.e., low paying) job in their dream career. Covering the cost of rent for a few years can offer young adults a support net until they achieve financial stability.

This is very different than paying the expenses of a young adult with no career goal whose primary focus is a robust social life.

Anyone can make a yearly gift to any other person of up to $17,000 tax-free, or $34,000 per couple, but there are ways to make gifts without triggering gift taxes. Direct tuition payments to schools are tax-free. Unlike putting money into a 529 account, there is no limit to how much can be paid directly to a college or university. Parents and grandparents could also help with a downpayment on a child’s home without paying gift taxes.

Gifts don’t have to be large to have an impact. Some parents and grandparents give their children or grandchildren a small amount to start saving for retirement. A gift of a few thousand dollars during their 20s can grow into a nice sum over many decades. If the recipient has earned income, you can contribute to their IRA or Roth IRA accounts.

If assets are limited, consider giving personal possessions, such as jewelry or family heirlooms, to younger generations. You’ll get to see them enjoy their gifts, without putting your own financial situation at risk.

Whenever the decision is made to make these gifts, families should talk about their values and intentions around money.

If there are concerns about children losing an incentive to work because of the family’s wealth, a spendthrift trust might pass wealth along while controlling its distribution.

Remember that today’s generous federal estate tax rules are set to expire in 2026. Currently, individuals can gift up to about $13 million ($26 million for couples) tax-free in their estate plans. If the exemptions expire, this amount will be cut by approximately half.

Reference: Barron’s (Nov. 4, 2023) “Give the Kids Their Inheritance Now or Make Them Wait? 3 Things to Keep in Mind”

Can You Amend a Will or a Trust?

It’s the rare person who puts their estate plan together once and never needs to change some part of it. What is important is to understand how to make changes effectively and legally to a will or a trust so these changes are enforceable and your wishes are followed. A recent article from Coeur d’Alene/Post Falls Press, “Amendments to your estate planning documents require certain steps,” explains how an estate planning attorney ensures that your requested changes are made properly.

All too often, people come to their estate planning attorney’s office with handwritten edits and changes to the original language, thinking their notes and a signature or their initials will make the changes legitimate. This is never a good idea.

People also arrive at their attorney’s offices with handwritten addendums written on the front or back of a will or trust document, attached by a staple or paper clip after the original document has been signed. This doesn’t work either.

These approaches create problems because they don’t meet state requirements for a legally valid amendment to a will or trust.

There are two ways to make legally enforceable changes to a will. One is replacing the prior document with an entirely new will document. This new will must explicitly state in the document that all prior wills are revoked and replaced.

The second is to add a document known as a codicil to the old will to clarify exactly which part of the old document is being changed. It typically reaffirms the unchanged other terms of the old will document.

Legally enforceable changes to trusts are similarly done in one of two ways. The first is to replace the prior trust document with an entirely new trust document, although the name and creation date of the trust must remain the same and must state explicitly this is not a revocation of the trust. This is referred to as a trust restatement.

The second way to change a trust is using a trust amendment, which is similar to a codicil of a will. A trust amendment is a new document added to the existing trust document. It states which parts of the original trust document are being changed.

It’s important to speak with a local estate planning attorney about making changes to wills or trusts because each state has its own technical requirements for a will codicil or trust amendment/restatement, which must be followed so the changes will be legally effective.

Just writing on the existing pages of a will or trust never meets the requirements but certainly ensures that there will be major post-death disputes among family members and interested parties.

An estate planning attorney can help with any modifications, whether they are large or small, to your will or trust.

Reference: Coeur d’Alene/Post Falls Press (Oct. 25, 2023) “Amendments to your estate planning documents require certain steps”