Katya Sverdlov Blog

In 2016, several well-known families had well-publicized fights about estates. These disputes should teach everyone to plan while one has capacity!

Prince

Pop artist Prince died in April 2016 without a Will. Since his death, at least 30 individuals have come forward, claiming to be Prince’s children, spouses, or half-sibling. As of this writing, the judge on the case dismissed most of these claims. It looks like the estate, valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, will be split amongst Prince’s younger sister and five half-siblings (pending the final results of genetic testing).

1. Schedule a family meeting to discuss your assets and your wishes with them. Create an inventory of your assets and share it with your family. Don’t leave your family in the position of scrambling in their search for documents and assets in the future!
2. Consider giving your children and your spouse passwords to your digital assets and email accounts: Your email may contain a lot of important information.

A Will execution has many formalities - ensure that your attorney actually knows them!

Most people think that writing and signing a Will is easy. I often hear from friends "Any attorney can do it", or better yet "It's so easy, I don't need an attorney, I will do it myself".

Well, do so at your own peril. Remember that the content of your Will is only half of the calculation for getting a Will probated, since Wills can and often do get invalidated based on improper execution, particularly when the Will is executed without an attorney being present. The latest case in point: Matter of Costello, 136 A.

Sometimes adults get adopted. Even though most adults no longer need a parent to make legal and financial decisions for them, adult adoptions still happen for other reasons.

The main reason for adult adoption is usually inheritance. If a person is not related to you biologically or legally, if there is no Will, then the person will not inherit your money. Of course, this issue can often be easily resolved by writing a Will and naming that specific person in the Will.

It's a New Year. People are trying to fulfill their new resolutions about money,  weight loss and projects.

I would suggest a resolution about friends.

It is well known that seniors who are isolated are more likely to be sick and depressed. We all need companions, if only to complain to about our health and current politics.

New York has a very strong policy against self-settled trusts. A self-settled trust is one where the Grantor transfers assets to an irrevocable trust but remains one of the Trust’s beneficiaries. While these transfers are legal, New York believes that they are “void as against creditors”. As a result, if the Grantor remains a beneficiary of this type of Trust in New York, his assets are not protected against creditors.

Nevada, however, together with approximately 12 other states, permits these types of trusts and protects the assets against creditors.
Read more . . .

Joint Revocable Trust: Lots of spouses opt to create a joint revocable trust. It makes a lot of sense to do so for many people: First, a lot of assets are owned jointly, so it can be an extra hassle to separate them. Second, the kids are common, so the bequest of assets after death will be common. Third, there is little chance of divorce, so there is no need to separate the assets. Last, there estate is below the federal tax threshold, so the actual ownership may not matter.

Mr. Redstone’s fortune is estimated at $5 billion. He could afford the best legal plan in the world. Yet, despite the assets and despite the multitude of involved lawyers, his estate planning and his last years are turning out to be a mess.

Mr.