Tag Archives: probate court

One week to be aware of – National Estate Planning Awareness Week

The week of October 21st is National Estate Planning Awareness Week. It’s a good time to think about what you want to have happen to your estate when you die. It really all boils down to how you’ve titled your property and who actually owns what.

There’s a really good article by Julie Garber that sums it up and gives you specifics to think about. Read it, decide what you want to do and get started. You never know what the future will bring and it’s best to be prepared.

For more estate planning information, go to www.diesmart.com.

Same sex couple employment tax filings – know what to do?

The IRS recently issued a series of tax revisions that directly impact same sex couples. Some of them are related to the filing of income tax returns and deductions that are now legal. This 60 second tip from Robert Keebler, CPA,may give you some information you may need.

Listen now. It may save you some money.

For more information about the new laws or estate planning, go to diesmart.com.

Pet cemeteries can now bury people…in NY

In 2011, the New York Division of Cemeteries ruled that human burials could not take place in pet cemeteries. This left many people devastated because they wanted their ashes to be buried with their pets…but they couldn’t be.

According to Ed Marin, owner of the 117 year old Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in Westchester, NY, prior to the ban more than 700 people’s ashes had been interred at Hartsdale. He said that he gets five or six requests per year for this service.

Now, New York state will once again allow animal lovers to be buried with their pets, if the cemeteries agree to two conditions:

1) They won’t charge a fee for the burial.

2) They won’t advertise human burial services.

For more information about burial options and other funeral related information, check out diesmart.com.

Bad mistake made by heiress Huguette Clark

Huguette Clark was an heiress who died in 2011 at age 104. She left behind a $300 million estate. The bulk of the money was inherited from her father, a copper tycoon in Montana. She owned a 23-acre estate near Santa Barbara valued at $100 million, a $24 million house in Connecticut and a $100 million coop on Fifth Ave. in New York. She was a painter and a collector of rare French and Japanese dolls. She had no children, no close relatives and only limited contact with any of her distant relations.

She spent the last 20 years of her life living at Beth Israel Medical Center as a recluse, closer to her doctors and nurses than any family.

When she died, the only people who attended her burial were funeral home employees.

What did she do wrong? She left behind two wills, written just six weeks apart.

The first one left $5 million to her nurses and the balance of the estate to her distant relatives, even though 14 of the 19 involved said that they had never even met Huguette.

The second will left nothing to the relatives. It specifically said” I intentionally make no provision…for any members of my family…having had minimal contact with them over the years.” Instead, charities are the largest beneficiaries, receiving over 80% of the estate. Also named was her registered nurse, Hadassah Peri, who would receive $15.3 million after taxes, and a goddaughter who would get $7.9 million. Lesser beneficiaries included Beth Israel Medical Center, her attorney, her personal assistant, her accountant, property managers and one of her doctors.

In addition to what she was given in the will, her registered nurse received more than $31 million in gifts before Clark died and the estate administrator is asking that the $31 million be returned to the estate.

Family members are claiming that the second will was written under duress when she was mentally ill and incompetent and the victim of fraud by her nurse, attorney and accountant.

Negotiations have been going on for a few years, with 60 attorneys involved in the case. However, the chance of a settlement is not certain and a jury trial is scheduled to begin in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan on September 17th.

Huguette Clark should have had better legal counsel when she decided what to do with her sizeable estate. She should have prepared a trust, including directions on who had the right to make decisions on her behalf when she was unable to do so. And she probably should have destroyed the first will.

It will be interesting to see what the probate court decides if a settled hasn’t been reached prior to September 17th.

For more information about Hugette Clark and her reclusive life, look for a book being released on September 10th titled “Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune.”

To learn more about how to plan for the end of your life, go to www.diesmart.com.

2/3 of all the people who ever lived to 65 are alive today!

This statistic comes from a presentation given by Ken Dychtwald, PhD, of Age Wave at the American Society on Aging 2013 conference that was held this spring.

This statistic is a part of what has caused the longevity revolution. What he meant is that because people are living much longer than they used to, the definition of “old age” is changing. People used to die before retiring so there was no need to worry much about what they would do. But, now, people must figure out what they should do with their “longevity bonus” and how to spend all of this extra time that they now have on earth.

You might think that people are just tacking their bonus onto the end of their life and spending it in retirement. However, it seems that they are redistributing it throughout their life. They are going back to school in their 40’s and then starting a new career, retiring from that new career and then changing fields again. This is unlike the past when people worked their whole life at one career and often retired after working at just one or two companies.

Retirement used to be considered an ending. Now many people consider it a new beginning. It’s a time that’s looked forward to with anticipation by most people. In fact, 91% of people expect to be happy in retirement. However, that expectation only lasts about a year. After that, people begin to think about what they actually want to do with the rest of their life and whether they want a new post retirement career. They also start to have growing concerns about health problems and insufficient savings. And in their late 70’s and early 80’s they come to terms with who they are and what will come.

Finally, Dr. Dychtwald said that, unlike in the past, retirement is a time to build relationships, keep learning, re-career, live with purpose and leave a legacy.

The entire presentation can be seen here and is well worth watching.

For more information about retirement and end of life planning, go to www.diesmart.com.