The Plain English Attorney Blog
Far too many attorneys overcomplicate things, making topics convoluted and difficult to understand to the average person. This blog is committed to explaining legal planning topics in an easy to understand format, in plain English. Enjoy the blogs, and please let us know if there is a topic you would like covered.
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There is an extremely effective asset protection trust where you can place your assets into trust, be the beneficiary of that trust, and secure those assets from divorce, lawsuits, and creditors. Unfortunately, it is not available in most states, including North Carolina, since those states do not a...
Your beneficiaries are legally adults at age 18, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are responsible enough to handle an inheritance. If you don't do an estate plan with a Will or Revocable Living Trust that incorporates age limits, the usual default under the law is 18.
This is a story going ba...
“Prenups don’t work!” the YouTuber practically screamed into the microphone, lamenting the downfall of men everywhere whose fortunes were being stolen from their gold digging exes. [Insert eyeroll here.] “A man works for years, decides to marry a woman, and insists on a prenup. The sign one, and the...
Good asset protection planning isn’t as complicated as it may seem. If thought about the right way, it can actually be pretty simple to follow. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand you can waive over a pile of assets and it is instantly protected from lawsuits, divorcing spouses, the elements, and ...
Recently, I've seen a trend of people wanting to protect their assets from a potential divorce as part of their life planning before getting married. While premarital agreements have a place, there are some ways to get around some or all of the terms in an agreement, and people want to be sure. In l...
Apparently, pets are a touchy subject for me. Having long-term pets like our cat Monty (for almost 20 years now) makes me particularly enraged when I read stories of pets being taken away. In this video, I review an article about police seizing a little girl's pet goat to enforce a contract that the...
It has been some time since I've covered Medicaid Myths in this blog, and some of these myths can be deadly to qualifying for Medicaid if followed through. Rather than start a list from scratch, I went straight to the source in my own book The Long Term Care Solution. Here is an excerpt from Chapter...
Estate Planning distributions aren’t always clean and even. Sometimes the kids and grandkids need money during life, and providing it to them can raise questions. (This can also be true when using a Will, but now the probate court is involved.) But whether something is classified as a gift, an advan...
Sometimes, messages need to be repeated to make sure they stick. Unfortunately, this often happens with ongoing maintenance with a revocable living trust to make sure that assets line up correctly with the overall estate plan, including the revocable living trust. Unfortunately, the "correctly" part...
A revocable living trust can be a great estate planning vehicle that keeps your assets out of probate and minimizes settlement costs. However, there are (at least) seven big mistakes that I has seen when it comes to putting together a revocable trust. While other attorneys may have different opinion...
Over the last few months, several people have approached me about planning to protect them from a marriage that could go wrong. After watching videos and the course on In-Law Protection Planning, they asked about how they could guard against the negatives of a divorce from a possible marriage rather...
A testamentary trust is basically language written into a Last Will and Testament that holds and manages estate assets for a beneficiary over a period of time beyond the probate estate being initially settled. Unfortunately, this has a lot of drawbacks depending on state law.
A testamentary trust m...
