Recent Blog Posts
An Old Year’s Resolution for Your Estate Plan
The fact that you are thinking about your estate plan can make you feel old, but not nearly as old as you feel when you tell your younger coworkers or family members that you have made a New Year’s Resolution. Young people are so used to uncertainty that they are incredulous that an adult… Read More »
What To Know About Whole Life Insurance
Estate planning often begins with wishful thinking. You look at the websites of financial planners who advise seniors on their finances, and you daydream about all the knee replacement-friendly hiking trips you can take and all the affordable 55+ communities where you might buy a modestly sized house. Once you get to the stage… Read More »
The ROAD to Housing Act
The biggest challenge regarding affordable housing is that someone else must bear the cost of the discounts that the landlords offer to tenants and that real estate developers offer to homebuyers, and there are only so many resources to go around. Tax incentives by local governments offset the costs, but only enough for developers… Read More »
Disputes Over Joint Homeownership
Money can cause conflict even between people whose temperaments are compatible under almost any other circumstances. Friendships have ended when the friends started a business venture together, but the business project fell apart before it got off the ground. Spouses who were each other’s strongest supporters when times were tough have turned against each… Read More »
Back to School Estate Planning
Once the school year starts, the feeling is anticlimactic, and you don’t know what to do with all this free time. Take a few moments, before the major school assignments start coming due, and work on your estate plan. Planning for the worst helps you stop sweating the small stuff, at least temporarily. If… Read More »
Getting Through Probate Painlessly
No one wants a messy probate case, but chances are that you will not have to deal with one. Almost anyone who is wealthy enough that their estate would have to pay taxes can afford to appoint a lawyer as personal representative of their estate; you don’t stay wealthy until you die unless you… Read More »
Are Pet Trusts Necessary?
Your estate plan shows how much you care, even if you do not have a lot of property to leave to the beneficiaries of your estate. Simply by writing a medical advance directive indicating your wishes about medical treatment during your final illness, you are saving your family untold amounts of stress. If you… Read More »
Positive Rent Reporting
Resentment can quickly form between landlords and tenants, but it does not have to be that way. In many rental properties, especially those owned by small-time landlords, there simply isn’t enough money to go around, and each party blames the other. Even when the rent is more than a third of the tenant’s income,… Read More »
Why Do Sellers Back Out of Real Estate Deals?
Trying to sell a real estate property is as stressful as trying to buy one. Only a small percentage of deals that make it to the stage where the buyer makes an offer result in a final sale, with the property changing hands. In most cases, the buyer is the one who backs out… Read More »
Don’t Let Chatbots Draft Legally Binding Agreements
Math teachers are acutely aware of how math phobic the majority of the population is, and most former math students will freely admit this. Meanwhile, writing teachers lament that people who do not write professionally or as a hobby do not realize how difficult it is to write a text that communicates the ideas… Read More »
