Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Who Needs Probate Lawyers?
In every probate case, the court appoints someone as personal representative of the estate. If the decedent wrote a will, the court appoints the person that the testator listed as personal representative. If there is no will, then the court usually appoints the person who petitioned the court to open the estate for probate…. Read More »
Is Insurance Your Ticket Out of Creditor Claims During Probate?
Once you get past the estate planning conversations about sunset walks on the beach and spoiling your grandchildren at the holidays, the subject often turns to expenses that a deceased person’s estate can incur, the things that will diminish the value of your property between your death and when your heirs receive their inheritance…. Read More »
Early Withdrawals From Retirement Accounts
Some people fret about the account balances of their retirement accounts getting too big. They study spreadsheets, plugging in values for when their required minimum distributions (RMDs) will start and trying to figure out how much they will owe in taxes on the money that the law requires them to take out of their… Read More »
Keep Your House Out of Probate With a Life Estate Deed
When young people get married, they do it with big dreams about their careers that are just starting and about the children that will be born to them in the future. Even the most pragmatic people often face disappointments later in life about how achieving those dreams is harder than it looks. By contrast,… Read More »
Return That Security Deposit
One of the hardest parts of operating any small business, including being a residential landlord, is chasing people around for individual payments. For landlords, maintenance of your rental units is also a major source of stress. After a tenant moves out, you want to get the apartment looking move-in ready as quickly as possible,… Read More »
How to Inherit a 401(k) Account
Inheriting property is not as glamorous as it sounds. It is often as much work to gain possession of the property as it would be to earn an equal amount of money through employment. If you inherit a real estate property, you must pay property taxes on it, and you are responsible for all… Read More »
How Can Landlords Accommodate Cost-Burdened Student Loan Borrowers
In your worst moments, it is easy to feel like D.C. is turning into a ghost town. The nation’s capital was never famous for its nightlife, except perhaps in certain parts of Adams Morgan where no one above the age of 40 dared to tread. The best restaurants closed at dinner time, and some… Read More »
Common Types of Real Estate Disputes
Despite what all the aspirational content about entrepreneurship will tell you, there is no industry where your entrepreneurship amounts to passive income. Buying real estate properties and renting them out sounds like easy money until you do it. The everyday costs of maintaining the properties, or of outsourcing the work of maintaining them, are… Read More »
Paying Debts During Probate
Keeping up with payments on your own debts is hard enough. How do you assume responsibility for someone else’s debts, especially when that person is no longer around to fill in missing details about his or her financial situation? This is what the personal representative of the estate must do in every probate case…. Read More »
Penalty-Free 401(k) Withdrawals to Pay for Long-Term Care Insurance Premiums
If you have money saved for retirement, especially if at least some of that money is in an employer-provided 401(k) account, then you are in a better position than most people are. You have already avoided the worst-case scenario, where your only retirement income comes from your Social Security checks, which are not enough… Read More »
