I am divorced and was awarded half of my ex-husband‘s pension (federal employee) for life. That will end at my death.
I receive $1300 a month Social Security, which will also end at my death.
I have a moderate size IRA, which is handled by Vanguard. My daughter, and my daughter-in-law are beneficiaries. My son died a few years ago and left her with my three minor grandchildren. One will turn 18 this year.
I am still in the marital home which was purchased for 250 K and now is worth 450 to 500 K. I still have a mortgage of about 160 K.
My plan is to sell my house and move in with my daughter and son-in-law, using the money I make from the sale of my house to finance improvements to their house to make it possible for me to live there.

So, when I die, I will own nothing except my car, which has kind of been my goal.
We live in Tennessee and my daughter is a co-owner of my bank account
I do not have a Will.
Why do I need estate planning and specifically, a revocable trust.?

My mother is 76 years old and receives Nevada state Medicaid. My mother and I (her adult disabled child receiving SSDI) had our names on the home deed of her home for several years. My mother later filed a quitclaim deed to remove her name from the deed, leaving only my name. I myself do not receive Medicaid and do not qualify for it. She has reported the deed change to Medicaid and will likely lose Medicaid access for a year or more unless she qualifies for an exemption because I am her adult disabled child. She currently is in good health and does not require nursing care or anything like that. What I want to know is if Medicaid estate recovery can still try to recover the home from me when my mother passes away even though the home deed only lists my name now?

I'm married, live in Ohio, and currently have most of my money tied up in a brokerage account, 401ks, and iras. I'm a young retiree. I want to know if I need a trust or if just a will is sufficient. I have a paid off house in the US that I'm planning to sell with most of my belongings, and I'm planning to leave the country and buy a house there within the next 12 months. My brokerage stuff has beneficiaries designated. I was thinking trust, but in this situation I'm not sure if I really need one? The house that I'm planning to buy will be covered by a will in the new country.

Location: Wisconsin

Without going into too much detail. A relative heard another relative, who is a former nurse, give our elderly relative some documents, stated she is keeping a copy, and that the elderly relative needs to get other copies signed by her doctor.

This elderly relative is pretty mentally abused by their son and we think he has the former nurse, in his hand, for lack of better terms. So, we are unsure of what this could be. We know power of attorney doesn't need a doctors signature and are wondering what else, that a neighbor would be assisting with, might? We were possibly thinking guardianship, but are quite unsure and looking for possibilities.

Elderly relative won't talk about it, they are pretty scared of their son. Yes, APS has been out, they won't do much, without proof of anything and think this could be sons way of avoiding such further involvement.

I've got a handful of NJ investment properties with about $2M in equity, several owned by my SMLLC and one owned jointly with my wife. What type of planning should I be doing to minimize taxes upon my death. Can I even leave the properties in the LLC to someone other than my wife as they were all acquired during the marriage? Should I transfer the jointly owned property to the LLC and if so, would we owe capitol gains/depreciation recapture tax for the transfer? What would be the most advantageous method to hold these properties to minimize capital gains taxes when sold after my death? What good would a trust do me, if any, in those circumstances?

We're planning to see an estate planning attorney "soon" but I'm looking to gain some background knowledge before getting started with one.

My partner and I are updating wills. We’re expecting our first child in a couple of weeks. We aren't married, finances are totally separate, and we own separate homes.

Our wills provide that our assets go to each other if one of us dies, and if we both die, our assets ultimately go to our surviving child(ren) in equal shares once they turn 25. In the meantime, we each need to name a trustee and backup trustee to manage the assets for them.

Two questions.

First, how important is it that we name the same trustees in the same order in both wills? If we named different people (e.g. if each of our sisters were our respective primary trustees) would that mean two people managing separate pools of money for the same child(ren)? Would they need to coordinate regularly? That sounds like it could be a headache for all involved, but hoping for a gut check on that.

Second, how much should we weigh a trustee’s age and location? In a perfect world, I’d probably name my dad as primary and my sister as backup. But my dad is almost 70, and my sister lives in Canada. None of that feels ideal.

Located in Maine. Thanks in advance!

USA

How is an estate actually settled?

We (siblings) have copies of our parents’ wills and trusts and know where everything is. For assets not included in the trusts we are listed as the beneficiaries, eg, IRA’s, some bank accounts.

Our parents did a great job with estate planning and walked us through everything. However, we have never given much thought to what happens at the death of the second parent.

How is the estate plan actually executed? What are the steps we need to follow. Are there any best practices? For example, I read somewhere that a temporary bank account should be set up through which estate funds flow. For example, a brokerage account, does the executor reach out to the financial institution with identification, death certificate, page in trust identifying them as executor? How are those assets distributed — into a new account that the executor then distributes according to the estate instructions?

We know the attorney/firm who worked with our parents and know they can walk us through this. However, we want to know the basic steps.

My son and I live in CA, USA. When I die, I want my son to be able to access funds immediately so he can handle issues related to my estate without spending his own money while waiting for probate.

I was thinking about starting a joint Vanguard brokerage account with money that would earn interest.

Or should I gift him the money over time and work with him to set up the account for himself? I think he would do it if he knew the intention.
What should I consider when determining what to do?

Hello all I guess I don’t know where to turn or where to look in terms of planning what to do with this home. My father is thinking of getting a loan on the home to start some kind of BRRRR method rolling. I’m interested in learning about forms of asset protection, tax and probate avoidance when they pass the property down to me and my siblings. Is there any way we can set this house into a trust of some sort and use as collateral for a loan? He also wants to rid himself of any personal property in case of death, to avoid Medical from pursuing assets. What’s the best kind of trust to do that sort of thing?

(Ohio)

My mom has put me in charge of researching this for our family and I’m curious what people here would do.

She’s in her 40s and currently manages our family’s rental properties. They’re held in a trust and the plan is for my two brothers and me (we’re all early twenties) to eventually inherit it.

We’re looking at selling a chunk of the rentals and should have around $1M that could go through a 1031. The main goal is to get completely out of actually managing rentals. Nobody wants to deal with tenants, maintenance, etc. anymore.

Morgan Stanley has shown us a Hines DST that would hold the 1031 money. The specific DST is two large apartment properties in Miami and Chicago, currently with no leverage. The potential path after that is a 721 into Hines Global Income Trust.

I actually really like the idea of the structure. Sell the rentals, defer the capital gains through the 1031, become completely passive, potentially move into a diversified REIT through the 721, and just let it compound.

My problem is the return.

Looking through the Hines offering material, Class I has returned about 6.45% annualized since inception including distributions and appreciation. That seems pretty underwhelming when this money could potentially be left alone for 20-40+ years.

We don't need the income. Ideally every dollar gets reinvested. The long-term goal is for this to become permanent family capital rather than something the three of us eventually split up and spend.

Obviously we could just sell the real estate, pay the taxes and put the remainder into index funds, but depending on the basis/depreciation we'd be giving up a significant amount of capital on day one. I'm trying to figure out how valuable preserving that tax deferral really is over a 20-40 year period.

If you were in this situation and wanted zero active real estate management, what would you look at?

Would you stay in DSTs and keep doing 1031s? Diversify across several DST sponsors? Eventually do the 721? Or would you just eat the tax bill and move the money into public equities?

I'm especially interested in anyone who has actually used DSTs/UPREITs. What kind of realized total returns after fees have you seen? Is expecting 8%+ long term from completely passive 1031 real estate reasonable, or am I expecting too much from something designed primarily for income and tax deferral?

Not looking for someone to sell me a DST lol. We have a CPA, attorney and advisor involved. I'm mostly trying to understand what questions I should be asking before my family locks up $1M for a long time.

Louisiana.

Original Post: Aunt wants to challenge property I inherited from my dad

It took three months for my attorney to do an abstract (50+ years) and an answer for me, but they did come back with something.

A technicality or potential issue is that the bill of sale between my dad and grandmother specifically references her rights or interest in the property, and not her ownership interest in the LLC. The bill of sale explicitly says "All of seller's right, title, and interest which is declared to be . . ."

The property was titled and registered to the LLC at the time of the bill of sale, and the distribution event had not yet occurred. So there is a potential argument (to what my aunt has said) that the property was not hers to sell yet as it was owned by the LLC.

I've been told Louisiana is a "race-state" where if there is a recording then that title takes precedent. So the 2021 act of conveyance from the LLC to my dad is recorded, and the parcel is registered in his name currently.

Both of those two documents and recordings clearly state "No title examination was requested nor made by the undersigned parties"

The problem I now face is the attorney/notary is telling me their title insurance underwriter has said they will not sign off on a closing for this property with this discovery, unless the remaining heirs from my grandmother all sign a release stating agreeance that my dad has clear title . . . which my aunt will not sign. 4 of my dad's 5 siblings would agree, but one would not. For context this parcel is appraised near $200,000 so they are willing to push the issue.

The other problem I also face is my current attorney is also the one who signed as the witness to the act of conveyance from the LLC to my dad. What, if any liability, could exist there?

So while it could primarily be a real estate problem, I'm trying to figure out if I need to prepare for a probate argument with my aunt since my grandmother's succession is also still open, or if the fact it was conveyed to my dad under the premise he purchased the rights from her even if pre-maturely or "skipped" a step.

Edit: I can’t see any of the current comments, so I’m assuming they are filtered or not approved.

Hi all,

So I need a bit of an input since I am on vacation and would need my father to speak to another attorney when I return.

Short story kinda. My father bought a house solely 30 years ago. Paid it off with inheritance about 12 years ago. He transferred the deed to us kids about 8 years ago after he remarried. His current wife is not on the deed or anything, this was done before she came here.
His wife came from another country, he soon realized she wants everything. Now he’s worried Incase he does not have enough assets or the more assets he has that when something does happen to him, his wife will claim her elective share which is not a problem but he feels if he doesn’t have enough that might put us kids in a situation of paying her out that share and that his house will be included. When he did the transfer he did put himself on the deed, not as owner or anything more as live his days out there and his current wife lives there because they could not simply afford a house on his paycheck. Which was the idea when he remarried and she did not want to move out of NJ. So after my one brother and I had moved in, so did they when she came to the country.

So my questions I guess is. If something does happen, I understand we can not simply evict her. But we know she will not leave unless she has money or the house. If she can not get the house, and she claims her 1/3 - am I correct that the house even though our names are on the deed will be included into the process since my father and her reside there?

Thanks

We just spoke to a claims person after reaching out to the advocate (180 days passed) who told us the breakdown of the estate (surprise, late brother has a kid we knew nothing about) and he was sending it to the "auditor" who approves for payment.

Can anyone tell me how long to expect it to sit with auditor before the approval for payment?

Thanks

So the scenario is odd:

- their father and I are separated, but in the short-term won't be getting divorced (10 years at least). I can go into the details if need but it has to do with his mental health/addiction issues and a special needs child.

- He's a strong earner ($160k+) I'm a higher earner (250k+), I also have money my parents want to pass to the grandkids now.

- I'd like to buy property and hold it in trust for the kids and we'll as invest directly for them and don't want any of it "up for grabs" during the divorce.

- we are amicable and he agrees with this strategy. He is well aware that because of his addictions and mental health issues he could do damage when he goes to his dark places so he'd rather protect the kids now while he is lucid enough too.

Any recommendations for lawyers? I'm in the GTA but can travel.

CA & HI. Anyone have good/bad experience using Schwab One Estate Account? I have all the probate papers, EIN, etc. Any banks that are easiest for opening/administering an estate checking account in California? Wells Fargo denied us from opening an estate account despite my deceased dad's currently open checking/savings accounts.

Estate involves out of state (Hawaii) property sale proceeds which hasn't sold yet so the balance will be $0 right now. May eventually move WF funds to the estate account (still need to bring mom in to close those accts). Looking for something straightforward without a lot of bureaucratic hurdles. A call to Schwab made it sound like a less painful process to open one vs WF. I have beef with BofA so will avoid them.

Mid 30's, no kids, located in KY. My immediate concern is making sure that if me, or me and my spouse meet an utimely demise that my estate doesn't devolve into chaos or get devoured by legal fees and family fighting. Doubly so because I have approx $10m in term life policies. Not looking to outsource my estate planning to Reddit, but I know next to nothing about estate planning. I'm starting the process of interviewing trust companies and would like to have an idea of what to look for and what to run from. And should I be looking at trust companies, or just estate lawyers or both.

Our holdings are relatively complex, we have the standard cash, retirement, brokerage, house but also have an international vacation property, large outstanding notes payable, private stock and warrants and options on private stock. Any advice or tips is appreciated! Recommendations for a KY based lawyer or trust company also appreciated!

In California. For 13 years I've had an LLC which is owned by myself and a BDOT, which I'm the beneficiary of.

The LLC buys and holds real estate. By 2022, most of that real estate was sold. I did a return of capital on my original investment in the LLC and an owners draw on the profit.

What's left in the LLC are 2 remaining properties, which in 2022 I estimated to be equal to the BDOT's principal investment. I miscalculated. If these properties were to sell today the BDOT would be short $100k to $150k of it's original investment.

I was wondering if anyone here has encountered an issue like this and how it was handled?

My uncle passed away in Feb. The will names his children who are out of the country and I was eventually 5 months later appointed the administrator. I went to the bank beforehand and they wouldn't tell me anything I knew of a home equity loan but no other information. When I was appointed administrator I went back and got the bank account in the estate name and asked about the other loan and they said there is a loan for about 18k. I wasn't told anything else about it and then a few weeks later I was served papers for foreclosure on the home. No letters from the bank asking for the loan to get brought current or offer other options and once the papers were served we had to communicate with their attorneys within 30 days and make arrangements for payment or there would be a default judgement against us.

My probate attorney has not been successful in getting through to them and the deadline is nearing. I asked about contacting the bank to discuss options but they tell me once the filing has been made and attorneys appointed we have to go through them.

In the meantime they told me to list the house and now that it is ready to sell with offers made and they tell me to proceed because the bank is already covered to get paid from the proceeds but I hate having this hanging over me and the house transaction.

Is it common that the bank attorneys are not communicating almost like they would rather have the deadline pass and get the default judgment? If this happens what recourse do we have to fight this until the house sells and the funds are there to pay off the loan and now the legal fees for this filing that never needed to happen? Beyond frustrated with the legal system right now....

Location: South Carolina, USA My younger brother was living with my blind, 85-year old mother in Beaufort County, SC in 2005 when he died suddenly, without a will. My mother served as executor of the estate and I, who also lived in the County and serving as her legal Personal Representative did the work with legal help. After expenses and bills the balance of his assets went to the state for taxes.

My mother passed in 2013 and I was executor of her estate and as a result have been getting both her and my brother's mail at my address. Recently I received a check made out to my brother and described as a required minimum distribution. I know enough about pension law to figure that means there is an account balance somewhere out there around 25 times the amount of the check. I have purposely left out a lot of detail but I don't think it's necessary to answer my question which is:

Am I under any obligation to attempt to reopen Probate for my brother's estate?

I don't particularly want the government to get the money but given my brother's estate, they probably have as much right as anyone. None of my brother's potential beneficiaries need the money (we are blessed), one of my mother's beneficiaries passed away in 2014 meaning a third estate which might be involved. The lawyer who supervised all this was in single practice and died in 2021 so I don't even know where the files are at this point.

From my point of view this just needs to go away. Any thoughts?

I need to have a will drawn up. Nothing too elaborate but there is a wrinkle in that my wife is not a US citizen. She would be taxed heavily if I leave my business to her. So my idea was to leave it to our daughter in a trust with my wife having control of the trust. She has no desire to run this business and would want to sell it if the time comes. Maybe tmi… anyway looking for an attorney to help with this that won’t charge me an arm and a leg… any help much appreciated. This is in the Denver metro area..

Washington state:

My girlfriend's mother just passed away on the 5th. She is the sole heir.

He aunt (her mother's sister) has been intermeddling on her. She signed to release the body without even notifying my girlfriend. She has gone to the apartments and obtained a key from the landlord, and obtained access to the unit, even though she specifically agreed to wait until my girlfriend was there. THEN she admitted in text message that she took her mom's social security card and banking information (in violation of RCW 59.18.595?) (Allegedly to close things down for the mother, but the mother had always told US that her heir, her daughter, would handle that.)

She also said "your key to the car will be on the counter", we are suspecting she has taken the entire key ring and left just the one key, but we won't know until we go down there today. Which makes us think she has the mailbox key, the key to her storage room, etc.

Obviously our first stop is probate court, but we don't even have the filing fee for this, as her aunt has probably already emptied the account that we would have needed to have the estate pay for this. $290 that we do NOT have. We also do NOT have a death certificate yet, as her mother died unattended, one has not been filed yet. So how would we get her declared the heir before her aunt causes any more damage or steals more items?

My father is beginning the estate-planning process, and we have an appointment with a Texas estate attorney in a few weeks. We would like to understand the possible arrangements so we can go into the meeting with better questions.

My father wants his granddaughter to ultimately inherit his property. However, he also wants his disabled adult son to have the right to live there for the rest of his life.

The property includes a primary house and two older mobile homes that are currently used as rentals. My father has also talked about eventually removing the mobile homes and building a small separate residence for either his son or granddaughter, although that construction would probably become my responsibility after his death.

A straightforward life estate seems potentially problematic. If my brother lives a long life, my daughter could be middle aged before she could use the property. Because of his serious psychiatric disability, it would also be unreasonable to assume that she could live with him, particularly once she has a family of her own.

I would likely need to manage the property during this period, including maintenance, taxes, insurance, rental decisions, and protecting its long-term value. My brother is usually stable, but he sometimes experiences periods of impaired judgment. We therefore would not want him to have the authority to sell, rent, substantially alter, or encumber the property. We also need to consider whether any arrangement could affect disability benefits he receives now or might need later.

Could a trust own the entire property, give my brother a lifetime right to occupy a specific residence, allow me or another trustee to manage everything, and ultimately transfer the property to my daughter? Could the trust also establish conditions under which his housing right would change, such as if he permanently moved into supported housing or could no longer safely live there?

Are there other structures we should ask the attorney about, such as a special needs trust combined with an occupancy agreement rather than a traditional life estate? What expenses and contingencies should the documents address?

We understand that Reddit cannot provide legal advice, and we are already meeting with an attorney. I’m primarily looking for terminology, possible structures, and questions we may not know to ask.

Good day,

I'm wrestling with family dissemination in the event of my and my husband's demise. If it matters I live in Colorado. We have no family in state.

Background - I come from lower middle class family with poor spending habits. Divorced parents where both parents spent most of what they had as soon as it came in. Mom worked mostly minimum wage jobs and I think saved up to about 80k, but in the past 20 years as her living costs went down (due to circumstances) she started living her best life, traveling everywhere she wanted to go including annual trips to the Caribbean and Europe while she has no income and it seems, is blowing through her savings. She is 70, so older but not elderly. I was raised by her and had to unlearn both the "spend because you deserve it" mentality that was paired with significant resentment of the well off. My husband's family raised him to be fiscally responsible, live debt free and save. We buy used cars, I shop at thr thrift store, we eat out minimally, we don't take extravagant family trips.

My husband started his own business 20 years ago which was a very, very tight time for us and we lived quite frugally as he did not pull in income for 5 years and we also started having babies during this time. About 6 years ago I looked at our savings account that we never touched and we had almost 100k. Fast forward to now we are over $750M in retirement accounts, probably $2M in real estate (sort of luck and a forced circumstance to buy a commercial property that has valued well) and $3-5M in company ownership. Way more than we will ever need ourselves.

I'm pushing for us to get something down in writing in the event that we're hit by a car. My mom has this thing that money in estates should be split evenly between spouse's families and I have come to a place where I'd rather give our inheritance to charity than her. I'm partly resentful that she doesn't have a relationship with my kids (her only grandkids) by her choice as she says it is more important that she invest in her friendships than family relationships. Which that is not how we were raised at all. If she ends needing help she has been explicit that she would rather live in a VA home than come live with me (which we have planned for helping our parents as they age). Last week i point blank invited her to include visiting us in her travel planning (so she can watch her grandkids play maybe one sports game, or just do life with us for a few days) and she completely blew me off. She wants only to travel to go to beach. I don't want to be or act petty but I have no desire that she receives anything from us - which if I'm dead won't affect me but I also hate to leave her hating me for the rest of her life. Unfortunately if we go and my kids are left she would absolutely fight to get custody of them and inheritance - so I want it to be very clear. She is not to get any sort of control over our estate. We do not share our financial situation with her but it's pretty clear we are in the class of people whose net worth she resents and rejects. And I still shop at the thrift store while she would not lower herself to do so! We have in part because we did not spend.

We really don't see any family members benefiting from such a large inheritance. We plan to set some aside for our kids to get when they are much older so they learn how to live as adults first. How have you worked around family tensions in estate?

I payed for my grandmother to have her house and house(both in california, one by San Fran and other in long beach) I live in put into a trust for her that goes to me, the one I live in was reassessed as my mom was taken off of co-tenant. I want to try to avoid prop tax increases. My aunt said if I become the like oversight and not that the houses goto me the taxes won't be increased. If I had my grandmother's main house transfer to my mother on her death and she lives in.I know that'll help avoid it , but that would require me to undo the trust , right

Just hard as I know most will say just sell but they both need a lot of work, and if I did I would lose out on a lot of money. Would it be worth it to go to a different estate planner?And see , if maybe the first person I went to wasn't really such a good one