last will and testament Tag

IT’S SPRING CLEANING TIME! DUST OFF YOUR OLD ESTATE PLAN   Spring time is when people often take a look around and start freshening things up. Home repairs, paint jobs, new furniture, new clothes, maybe a different haircut…… there’s something about seeing the new buds on trees and the blooming daffodils that gets us thinking this way. It’s the perfect time to pull out your old estate plan...

A few years ago, my husband and I sat down with all of our children and their spouses for a family meeting. I started with, “Our plan is to live forever. But just in case ………” and we proceeded to tell them about our new estate plan, who would have which responsibility, where important data is kept, who takes care of things for us, who our doctors are, and who to...

If you are in a non-traditional relationship — i.e., the unmarried couple living together for years, whether gay, straight or anyone in between — don’t you want to be the one who decides who takes care of you or manages your decisions if some catastrophe occurs? Of course you do. But if you don’t set up a plan, and you just “leave it up to the law,” the exact opposite of your...

A Last Will and Testament designates an Executor who has legal authority to handle the estate assets. The Will also specifies who receives what, and in what way; the language of the Will specifies if the share is to be put in a Trust or is to pass outright, and who will receive the share if the named beneficiary has died. If assets are jointly owned or if they have named beneficiaries, they...

Much of our work in the area of guardianships, probate and estate administration involves our County Surrogates.  As we continue to adjust to working with COVID-19, be aware that each Surrogate Office is adjusting their hours and policies to deal with the pandemic. The overview of changed hours and policies in each county can be found here.  In Union County, the new hours are Mon. & Thurs....

I have been saying for years that taking the time to put things in order in proper legal documents can save a lot of headache and money in the long run. “Careful planning can prevent a crisis” has been one of my professional mottos for many years now. New Jersey has a statute that allows a person to sign a document that designates a Funeral and Disposition Representative who has...

The house is sold, the estate’s debts and bills have all been paid, the accounting has been presented to the beneficiaries, they have signed off on the Release & Refunding Bonds, and now it’s time for the estate’s Executor or Administrator to distribute the estate to the beneficiaries according to the Will or according to the requirements of the law. The estate may have...

As elder law attorneys, our clients have presented us with many difficult situations involving adult children or grandchildren who live in their houses. Sometimes a child has run into some hard times and sees the parent’s home as an economical option; the child may move into his parent’s house along with his spouse and children. Sometimes the child just never became self-sufficient...

I cannot tell you how many times over the years a client has told me that despite what is written in the Last Will and Testament of their parent or grandparent or Aunt or Uncle, “s/he said that s/he was leaving the house to X,” or “she wanted Y to get more because he moved in and was taking care of her at the end” or “she gave a lot of money to Z and intended him...

A handwritten Will is sometimes called a “holographic Will.” In New Jersey, it is referred to as a writing intended as a Will. The baseline statute for what is a “Will” requires that for something to “be a Will” it must be (1) in writing; (2) signed by the testator or by someone else at the testator’s direction while the testator is consciously...