Estate Planning For Blended Families In Pennsylvania

Blended families face many estate planning challenges in Pennsylvania and the failure to properly plan can be destructie and expensive

Ever Wanted To Do A GRAT to Save Estate Taxes? They Might Not Work Soon

Short term GRATs are under attack by Congress. This is a great technique for families or individuals with assets that are appreciating in value. A recent bill passed ban the house would ban the short term grat. Read more for what to do now.

Disinheriting a Beneficiary - Know How To Minimize the Threat of A Will Contest

Many clients have considered leaving an heir - even in some cases, a child or grandchild - out of a will.  Many others have considered making unequal distributions to one child and leaving less to another child.  There may be very good reasons for such actions.  However, these wills are often challenged and will challenges can be expensive, time consuming, and result in your wishes being ignored or foiled by a court or the disinherited heir.

However, there are four or five key strategies that you can use to minimize or avoid family will contests and make it much more likely that your will will be carried out.

For more information on avoiding will contests and disinheriting an heir click here.

This is the first in a three part series on how to do your estate planning in a way designed to protect against interfering son or dughter in laws, or an attack by a disinherited child or a child or grandchild who receives a lower inheritance than others.  If you face this situation, and have eitehr made unequal gits to children, or you have written a child or heir out of your will you will want to follow this series.

David M. Frees III
610-933-8069

Call for more information about estate planning or for executors or trustees.

The Obamas Are Saving For College. How Are They Doing It?

Here is an article I published on the UTBF site about the Obamas and how they are saving for college.  It's a quick and informative read but make sure that you click on the Wall Street Journal artcile.  It also has links to articles on the gift tax planning aspects of college savings.

David M. Frees III
David's practice, with its convenient offices listed below is
focused on wealth, estate, and asset protection planning and
the representation of trustees and executors.

Protecting Your Heirs From divorce and Lawsuits

This short video by David M. Frees III describes a new way of thinking about protecting your children and grandchildren from divorce and lawsuits.

Follow David on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/davidfreesesq for up to the minute postings on the law of asset protection, wills, trusts, and estates in Pennsylvania.  Click here to follow.

I Love My Kids' Spouses....but What Parents Can Do To Protect Their Heirs From Divorce

Have you ever worried about leaving an inheritance to a child or grandchild with an unstable marriage?  What if there is a divorce?  Has a heir of yours already been divorced?  What if they already had the inheritance?  would it still be intact?

There is generally a view among clients visiting us for the first time that it is a devil's choice.  They believe that they either leave an inheritance to an heir and run the rist of divorce, or they disinherit that heir or leave them less.

There are however, planning tools and estate planning secrets that allow you to give a child or grandchild almost full use of assets while protecting them from creditors of the child and even from divorce.

These planning options run across a spectrum ranging from simple to very complex.  As is often the case, the more complex the plan the more effective it is.  Asset protection is generally about layering the techniques to make them less attractive and more expensive to attack.  And divorce protection planning is the same.

First, and at the most simple level.  You can leave assets outrigh, but leave a note or memorandum to the heir encourging the assets to be kept in a segregated account and that they not be placed in joint names with a spouse.  In Pennsylvania, this does offer some protection.  If the heir keeps the assets separate, they do not become matital assets in the event of a divorce.  However, the growth in the value of those assets is marital property. So an issue still remains and, there is a strong psychological compulsion of heirs to make the assets joint even with your memorandum

Next, you can also suggest a pre or psot nuptual agreement be executed as a condition of the gift.  Understand however, that this can be viewed a medling in the affiars of your heirs and can cause hard feeels and a problem within their relationship.  Also, the heir is free to ignore the document or to voluntarily modify it before or after your death and you would not know.  Even where a lawyer is paid by a parent, the lawyer cannot disclose communiocations with the child.

So, while these alternatives have some merit in simplicity, there are obvious disadvantages.

In the next installment we will examine a nummber of more powerful and effective techniques that many affluent families are using.  In the meanwhile, we have an article on this topic that you can read here just by clicking. 

If you have questions or comments please leave them below or email me at dfrees@utbf.com

David M. Frees III, Esquire is Chariman of the Trust, Estates, and Wealth Preservation Section
of Unrh, Turner, Burke and Frees
He is also an author and speaker on the topics of intergeneraltional wealth, Estate and Inheritance Tax Planning,
Philanthropy and Family Foundations and Donor Advised Funds.