Living Trusts

August 8, 2011

Season Tickets, Frequent Flier Miles, and Other Unique Assets in Estate Plan

Local residents visit our New York estate planning attorneys for professional assistance to protect and pass on their assets. Many also expect guidance identifying the items that should be considered an asset and included in the planning. Most area families need to consider things beyond homes, cars, investment portfolios, and similar items when creating their New York estate plan.

For example, what happens to frequent flier miles and rewards upon an individual’s death? Many residents spend years and thousands of dollars in airfare racking up mileages and benefits in airline sponsored loyalty programs. A recent article in Payments News explained how many fliers spend time accumulating these “miles” and rewards only to leave them unused at their death. Some reports indicate that as many as 3.5 trillion miles currently remain unused in these programs. Interestingly, each airline has a different policy in place regarding transferability of loyalty benefits at death. American Airlines specifically allows accumulated mileage credit to be transferred to a person named in a court-approved will or estate plan. Other carriers, such as United Airlines, require that a beneficiary be named with the program, a fee be paid, and require an executor to contact the airline before miles can be transferred.

Another asset which one may wish to leave behind is the option to purchase valuable season tickets. Area residents often spend years waiting for the opportunity to become a season-ticket holder for their favorite teams. A post this weekend at The Faculty Lounge recently discussed this topic. Most teams have policies in place that allow an individual’s decedents to gain the right to purchase. However, it is important to closely examine the team policy related to ticket transferability to understand what issues might arise. For example, there may be conflict over who gains the right if several children share in ones’ assets. Many team policies indicate that there will be no transferability if several individuals share in the right and do not agree on a single transferee. Some teams also expressly prohibit a non-relative from receiving the right to purchase the tickets.

June 24, 2011

Adult Children Often Remind Senior Parents of Estate Planning Importance

by Ettinger Law Firm

Proper New York estate planning has ramifications beyond the lives of the planners themselves. Whole families are impacted by these decisions. The far reaching consequences mean that it is often appropriate for concerned family members–like adult children–to remind parents of the value in proper estate preparations.

An article yesterday in the Monterey County Herald discussed the role that adult children often have in encouraging their parents to adequately create and update estate plans. A concerned daughter had contacted the paper to ask for help working with her parents through the process, because she noted that “their estate is a mess.” Apparently several years ago the woman’s parents contacted a small firm with only one office seeking help to create a living trust. The trust was created and then forgotten about. Several years later the family wanted to update the plan. However, the employee who created that trust had left town without leaving any contact information. The senior couple eventually gave up trying to contact the man and have resigned themselves to being satisfied with the outdated documents.

The couple’s daughter explained that, like many area residents, her parents did not like to discuss the issue. The adult child knew that her parents’ most valuable real estate holding was not in the trust and she was completely unaware if they had valid wills, list of assets, life insurance, or burial insurance.

Expectedly, the daughter was strongly encouraged to have her parents get in touch with a new, competent estate planning professional to update the plan. It was explained how it was imperative that the parents trust, will, and medical directives be in place and reflect the couples’ current assets and wishes. The failure of valuable assets to be included in the trust would lead to unnecessary and costly probate.

These issues are often tough for many parents to discuss with their children. That is why it is sometimes necessary for children and other loved ones to take time to ask about estate planning matters and provide encouragement to ensure that the task is not ignored. The protection of important assets, security of long-term care plans, and necessity of clear medical directives affect everyone in a family.
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March 11, 2011

Surviving Spouse’s Use of the Home in Second Marriages

by Ettinger Law Firm

A common provision in wills and trusts, where one of the couple in a second marriage owns the marital home, goes something like this “My surviving spouse shall have the right to reside in the home for so long as he/she desires, provided he/she pays all taxes and insurance premiums thereon and shall maintain the premises in good order and repair. Upon his/her vacating the premises, the same shall be sold and the net sale proceeds distributed to my children in equal shares, per stirpes.”

Sounds fair, doesn’t it? After all, the surviving husband or wife gets to live in the house as long as they like, rent-free, subject only to payment of the carrying charges. In practice, however, the plan carries a significant defect. It puts the surviving spouse in a “Catch 22”. If they find the house is too large, too difficult or too expensive to maintain they have the choice to leave, but then face the prospect of a significant expense to purchase another residence out of their own funds or, in the alternative, the cost of rental which may add thousands of dollars in monthly outlay.

For this reason, we recommend that the surviving spouse gets not only the use and enjoyment of the home for life, but also the use and enjoyment of the proceeds of sale of the home for life, to either purchase a smaller home or condo or use the income from the sale of the home to pay for a rental apartment. In our view, the children of the previous marriage lose nothing. The surviving spouse could have lived in the house for life so why not give him or her the flexibility to trade down as they get older? If there are excess sale proceeds, these can be invested to provide additional income to the surviving spouse. The co-trustee, perhaps the attorney as previously suggested in these pages, makes sure the funds stay intact for the deceased spouse’s children after the second spouse dies.

February 11, 2011

“Nice” Lawyer Costs Family $300,000.00

by Ettinger Law Firm

by Michael Ettinger, Esq.

A couple came in to see me today for the husband’s 88 year old father who is a nursing home in Florida. They now wish to bring him up to New York to be nearer to the family. He has about $600,000 in assets, including his home.

They told me about the very nice lawyer he has down on the west coast of Florida, who set up a revocable living trust for Dad and for Mom who died last year, in February of 2006, and amended it in March of 2010.

December 20, 2010

How Disclaimer Trusts Work

by Ettinger Law Firm

by Michael Ettinger, Esq.

Commonly used in estate planning today, disclaimer trusts allow the surviving spouse great flexibility in optimizing estate tax savings.

Here’s how they work. Each spouse sets up their revocable living trust. Husband and wife are co-trustees of his trust, using his social security number and, similarly, they are both co-trustees of her trust with her social security number. Let’s say husband dies first. His trust says “leave everything to my wife except that, whatever she disclaims, i.e. refuses to take, will remain in my trust. The disclaimer is a legal document that lists the assets disclaimed and their value. Wife remains as trustee on husband’s trust after he dies and may use the funds in his trust for her health, maintenance and support. She may also remove 5% of the trust every year for any reason or $5,000, whichever is greater.

September 22, 2010

55% Federal Estate Tax Rate Returns on 1/1/11

by Ettinger Law Firm

by Michael Ettinger, Esq.

The year 2001 was a space odyssey in more ways than one. It was also the last time we faced Federal estate tax rates as high as 55%, and exempt amounts as low as one million dollars. Nevertheless, this appears to be what we are going to see take effect on 1/1/11, due to the expiration of Bush era tax cuts enacted in 2001. No one would have predicted what has come to pass.

Taking effect on January 1, 2002, The Economic Growth and Tax Recovery Act was to be amended at some point during the next nine years. It was widely expected that something close to the high water exemption of 3.5 million dollars, existing at the end of 2009, would be made permanent. Health care reform, however, dominated the legislative agenda at the end of 2009, pushing estate tax reform to the sidelines. Political bickering then prevented an extension of the 2009 exemption, at least until a solution was found.

September 8, 2010

What is Elder Law Estate Planning?

by Ettinger Law Firm

by Michael Ettinger, Esq.

“Elder Law Estate Planning” is a niche area of the law which combines the features of elder law and estate planning that pertain most to the needs of the middle class.

Estate planning was originally for the wealthy few. Middle class families did not consider themselves as having “estates” to plan. During the Reagan years (1980-1988), a great economic expansion occurred, raising the asset level of the middle class into the realm of estate planning. With middle class people suddenly exposed to “estate taxes”, the need arose for estate planning, to reduce or eliminate those taxes. A few years later, in 1991, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) published “A Consumer Report on Probate” which concluded that probate was a process to be avoided, in all but the most exceptional cases. This marked the beginning of the end of traditional will planning and started the “living trust revolution”. AARP recommended that families start using trusts rather than wills, to avoid probate and save their beneficiaries tens of thousands of dollars in the estate settlement process.

August 9, 2010

The Worst Estate Plan I Ever Saw

by Ettinger Law Firm

by Michael Ettinger, Esq.

Recently, a couple came in to see me. They were people of means, having accumulated an estate in excess of two million dollars. Sadly, the husband, a fine gentleman, had contracted an incurable form of cancer. They knew it was time for a review of their estate planning documents.

The couple had two sons, both in their fifties. One was an established professional, the other a successful entrepreneur.

June 28, 2010

“You Give Lawyers a Good Name”

by Ettinger Law Firm

By Michael Ettinger, Esq.

Reflecting on this comment made to us by a client recently, the following thoughts came to mind. What do we actually do at Ettinger Law Firm?

All we do is save our clients a lot of time, many thousands of dollars and the not so petty annoyances they might otherwise have in settling their family’s affairs on the death of a loved one. We help them reduce or eliminate taxes on the estate so that more passes down to help their children and grandchildren. These days, we also protect the inheritances our clients leave so that it is not lost should the heirs get sued or divorced and, better yet, we assure them that their wishes will carry on for decades after they are gone, by passing the inheritance on to their grandchildren one day. Should disability occur, our clients have had their assets protected years earlier through asset protection planning. For many who come to us in their hour of need, without preparation, we take on the burden of helping them through the Medicaid maze and help them save and protect much more of their assets than they ever thought possible.

June 14, 2010

Singles and Couples Without Children – The Lawyer as co-Trustee

by Ettinger Law Firm

by Michael Ettinger, Esq.

Previously we wrote about the lawyer as co-trustee in the second marriage setting. The main concern there was to protect the share and the interests of the deceased spouse and their family. This was a situation ideally suited for the lawyer as trustee due to inadequate protection if one of the surviving spouse’s children acts as co-trustee, and the inevitable conflict that arises if one of the deceased spouse’s children acts as co-trustee.

For singles and couples without children, the lawyer as co-trustee fulfills an entirely different function. In the couples setting, we are really referring to the issues that arise after the first spouse dies. From an estate planning point of view, couples without children ultimately have the same issues as singles.