Although often misunderstood, trusts are commonly used to plan an estate. With the estate tax exemption nearly $12 million, the primary advantage of a trust for most clients is no longer minimizing estate taxes, but rather the avoidance of probate. However, trusts often provide only limited parameters for how the assets are to be used for the beneficiaries. A trust may, for example, provide that the trustee has absolute discretion to distribute the assets for the “health, edu

Over 20 years of estate planning experience has taught me a lot about what parents should and should not share with their children. Too often, a parent may insist on discussing unimportant or trivial matters and refuse to share the important matters such as how they decided who would receive an heirloom. As a Wall Street Journal article several years ago recommended, disclosing the specifics about your will or trust can be very beneficial to your children (“Five Reasons for P

Probate is the legal process by which the estate of a deceased person is settled. The word probate is a Latin term which means to “prove the will”. Nowadays, probate also includes those estates where the deceased person dies without having a will. With or without a will, probate administration generally involves identifying the assets of the decedent, paying the decedent’s debts and taxes, then distributing the remaining assets to the devisees or heirs. If there is a will