Category Archives: Estate Planning
What are the Legal Benefits Associated with Marriage?
Marriage is more than just a new phase of your relationship with your partner—it is also a legally binding contract that affords you certain legal benefits often unavailable to single people. The following are a few examples of those benefits and protections you will receive as a married person: Tax benefits: Married people can file… Read More »
Make Sure to Update Your Will and Estate Plan After a Divorce
Estate plans are at once intensely personal and a shared endeavor. The goal of most wills and trusts is to specify what you wish to leave to your family or other beneficiaries so that they can carry out their own wishes and dreams once you are gone. These plans, however, are often created by married… Read More »
Estate Plans and Divorce: What You Need to Know
Both parties in a divorce must address estate planning issues to help ensure there are no surprises after divorce — or even in the event one spouse dies at any time before a divorce’s finalization. The issues cited in a January 2008 Report of the Surrogate’s Court Advisory Committee resulted in a rewrite of existing… Read More »
Changing Seasons: Advanced Medical Directives
Estate planning is essential. Big changes in life mean changes to estate planning documentation, including your medical directives. An inheritance, divorce or marriage could change choices made years earlier. Any person over the age of 18 should have a medical directive, regardless of wealth. While end-of-life decisions are generally equated with the aged, accidents and… Read More »