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Estate Planning Considerations When Helping Your Child Buy a Home
As home prices continue to rise, many parents are helping their adult children purchase their first homes. Many parents do not realize that this type of financial assistance can have estate planning implications.
Did you know that banks, insurance companies, corporations and courts are required by law to report dormant accounts to the New York State Comptroller? These organizations must attempt to notify you by mail and publish this information in newspapers.
The Build Back Better Act was passed by the House of Representatives on November 5, 2021 and is headed for the Senate. None of the major provisions that would have affected estate planning were included in the House version.
An executor is the individual appointed to administer someone’s Last Will and Testament. An executor of a New York estate is not expected to administer a decedent’s estate for free.
Couples who are both U.S. citizens receive the benefit of the unlimited marital deduction on federal estate and gift taxes. The idea is that the surviving spouse pays any estate tax at their death. In contrast, transfers from a U.S. citizen to a noncitizen spouse do not enjoy this benefit.
Wills and revocable trusts often refer to the terms “per stirpes” and “per capita”. When you create a last will and testament, or a revocable trust, you choose specific beneficiaries to inherit your estate at your death.
The changing estate tax landscape makes it more important than ever for accountants and executors to file a federal estate tax return for portability when one spouse passes away.
Removing a Trustee is not easy. Removal of a Trustee takes more than a disagreement or general mistrust of the fiduciary to have him or her removed.
Grandchildren do not have automatic inheritance rights except under certain circumstances. In New York, the most common scenario where a grandchild may inherit is when a grandparent passes away without a Will and the grandchild’s parent is no longer living.
Any beneficiary of an estate is entitled to an accounting from the executor or administrator of the estate. This is true whenever assets pass through Surrogate’s Court.
“Letters of Trusteeship” is a court document giving the nominated trustee of a trust created under a Last Will and Testament (“Will”) the power to act. Such a trust is called a testamentary trust because it is created in a Will.
