At its core estate planning is about uncomfortable questions.  No one really wants to think about end of life issues.  The topic of your parents, although it certainly can raise its fair share of tricky questions, is very important to the estate planning process.  In particular, discussing how your parents handled estate planning, how their lives have played out, can help get you thinking seriously about how your life might mirror or diverge from theirs.

Question: Have either of your parents remarried?  If so, what did you think about that? Could the same happen to your spouse?  How did a remarriage affect the rest of your family?  It’s important to consider all possible scenarios when planning your estate and the example of your parents can be invaluable.

Question: Did your parents ever discuss their wealth or business in front of or with you?  Did they ever discuss estate planning? If they did, how did that work out?  How old were you when these conversations happened.  Did they talk with you alone or as part of a larger family discussion?  Conversely, if they didn’t discuss their wealth or estate planning with you, how did that affect the administration of their estate later?  This is probably the best guide, the best example, for you to look toward when deciding how to handle conversations like these with your own children.

Question: What sort of relationship did you have with your parents? This question is especially important if your relationship deteriorated, and if so the follow up question is: why?  In estate planning it pays to engage in hypothetical worst case scenarios.  If your relationship with your own children should follow the example of you and your parents, how should that affect your estate planning?

Question: How did your parents divide up their estate? In Illinois if no admissible will exists, a decedent’s estate is divided up with half going to the spouse and the other half divided up equally among the children.  Plenty of people shape their estate different, of course.  The example of your parents can help you figure out how you’d like to plan for the division of your own estate.  Did you agree with how your parents split up their estate?  Did they ever explain their reasoning to you?

In addition to questions about your parents, similar questions about how your grandparents handled their estates can be quite enlightening.  For more information on estate planning and other estaate concerns, contact the Chicago Estate Lawyers at Horowitz & Weinstein.

Next post: your spouse or partner

Legal Disclaimer.

At its core estate planning is fundamentally morbid.  As the cliche goes, the only certainties in life are death and taxes, and estate planning focuses on both of them.  Surprisingly, in the process of planning for an estate questions about mortality sometimes go unasked.  They’re certainly unpleasant topics for conversation, a surefire way to ruin a dinner party in a hurry, but they are important to the process of estate planning.

Question: What is your greatest fear?

Specifically here, what’s relevant are fears as they relate to end of life issues.  Arachnophobia is not particularly helpful.  Is death your greatest fear?  Maybe loss of autonomy, or misappropriation of your estate most worries you.  Perhaps you fear the process of closing your estate might turn your loved ones against each other.  All of these can and should affect planning for your estate.

Question: Have you ever discussed the possibility of your death with your loved ones?

If you have, what came of that discussion?  Are your family members willing to have that conversation and to think honestly about how to carry on your affairs after you’re gone?  If you haven’t, what’s gotten in the way?  Like many of the questions in this series, this one’s about digging deeper than the obvious issues of finances.

There are of course a plethora of follow up questions that can come from this discussion.  Morbid as it undoubtedly is, open and honest reflection on your own mortality is a key part of effective estate planning.

Next post: your parents

For more information on estate planning, contact the Chicago estate lawyers at Horowitz & Weinstein.

Legal Disclaimer.

For many, estate planning tends to be an affair of numbers.  How much are you worth?  What can be done minimize the exposure of your estate to taxation?  And while there’s no doubt that questions about estate and gift taxes are an important consideration in estate planning, ensuring that your legacies are handled as you want them to be requires one to dig a little deeper.

Question: Where did your values come from?  Who influenced them?

The obvious answer here is probably your parents and your family.  But a second grade teacher or church pastor or co-worker could also have profoundly shaped the way you see the world.  The point here is to start to dig deeper into your values, to gain a deeper understanding of them, so that you can shape your estate planning to best follow those beliefs and principles.

Question: What are the three values or aspects of life that are the most important to you?

For some people there’s nothing more important that family, integrity, or hard work.  For others life is about friendship or spirituality.  Whatever your answers are, they will provide an important glimpse into what matters to you in a meaningful way.  And what matters to you should help affect your estate planning.

Question: Have you tried to impart your core values to your children?

Now we’re starting move from the theoretical, to the practical.  Illinois law provides that in the absence of an admissible will, a descendant’s estate is divided up half to the spouse, and the remainder divided evenly among the children.  It can be tough, considering whether or not your children are likely to do with your estate as you would like them to.  If you are concerned, that’s important to know when you’re planning your estate, especially when it comes to matters like naming an executor.

Question: What are your goals in life?  Have you achieved want you wanted to?

This the big one.  It’s a broad question and the potential answers are infinite, but this is an essential consideration in estate planning.  We are all mortal but our legacies long outlive us.  It can be a comforting thought to know that we have made it so that even if we cannot do all that we hoped during our lives, our estate will further those pursuits after we are gone.

Next post:  end of life issues

For more information on estate planning or other estate and probate issue, contact the Chicago estate lawyers at Horowitz & Weinstein.

Legal Disclaimer.

In the world of probate, the will contest tends to be seen as the quintessential probate action, just as the will is often seen as the quintessential artifact of estate planning.  In simplest terms, a will contest is a legal attempt to invalidate a will.  In Illinois, a will contest can be filed by an interested person, as defined by the Probate Act.  In this context an interested person is anyone with a financial interest, property right or fiduciary status in the proceedings.  The procedure, in Illinois, for a will contest is relatively simple in overall structure.  The party challenging the will is challenge that the will in question is actually the will of the testator.

In general there are two means of going about this.  The first is to argue that the will in question does not meet the legal requirements for such a document.  In Illinois, for example, to be legitimate a will must be signed by witnesses.  There are numerous legal requirements for a will to be legitimate and a will contest might try to invalidate a will on the grounds of any of them.  The second general method of contesting a will is to argue that the document is invalid because it was created by means of fraud, duress or forgery.

The specifics of any will contest case will be nuanced, of course, and no two cases will look exactly alike.  For more information on will contests or other probate issues, contact the Chicago probate lawyers at Horowitz & Weinstein.

Legal Disclaimer.

A trip to an estate planner is almost certain to involve a series of questions, information the planner needs to determine how best to ensure your wishes are carried out.  For sake of convenience these questions often take the form of a questionnaire.  Most of these forms are pretty much identical, with the same basic questions asked.  They’ll include all the pertinent personal information: date of birth, social security number, children, spouse information, etc.  And they’ll also ask about your financial position.

All of this is very important information, of course, but there are considerations to estate planning that go beyond these basics that can be very illuminating.  In a series of posts to appear over the coming weeks, this blog will present a few of these estate questions you might not have thought of before.

The basics are important.  Your financials, your personal information, and your family are all integral parts of any estate plan.  Here’s one question, however, that might not immediately come to mind.

Question: “What does ‘wealthy’ mean to you?”

The textbook definition of wealth, especially within the context of estate planning, is something you can put a dollar sign in front of.  And this definition may suffice for some, but for others, certain considerations may trump monetary affluence.  Perhaps you consider influence or effect of money to be worth more than its numerical value, so your estate planning might prioritize charitable interests over avoiding taxes.

Next time we’ll look at values and goals.

For more on estate planning, contact the Chicago estate attorneys at Horowitz & Weinstein.

Legal Disclaimer.

At present the future of the estate tax is uncertain.  The 2010 Tax Relief Act instituted the current rules, but it is set to sunset at the end of 2012.  In the recently released budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 the Obama administration released its suggestions for permanent changes to the estate, gift and generation skipping transfer taxes.

Like the current rules, the Obama proposal would retain the portability between spouses of estate tax exclusion, allowing a decedent to use the remaining exclusion not used by their pre-deceasing spouse.  The core specifics, however, are different in the proposal than current rules.

Under the 2010 Tax Relief Act the estate tax and the gift tax are unified and share a $5 million exemption.  The top bracket for estate, gift and GST taxes is 35%.  The Obama proposal would separate the estate and the gift tax, with estate and GST taxes having a $3.5 million lifetime exemption, and the gift tax having a $1 million lifetime exemption.  The top bracket for estate, gift and GST taxes would be raised to 45%.

The proposal contains a few other changes to the rules regarding these taxes, most notably capping the amount of time an asset can be protected from taxation by virtue of a GST at 90 years.

The exact future of the estate tax is of course still uncertain.   For more information on the estate tax and other estate planning and probate concerns, contact the Chicago probate lawyers at Horowitz & Weinstein.

Legal Disclaimer.

Almost 200 laws passed in 2010 under the 96th Illinois General Assembly went into effect on January 1, 2011.  Among them is PA 096-1195, an amendment to the Illinois Power of Attorney Act.  These changes do not affect any existing documents, but the changes may warrant a reworking of existing powers.

The amendment makes several changes to the act.  Illinois law provides three options for agents to plan for end of life issues, essentially an option not to resuscitate or use life support machines, an option to use any available means to prolong life regardless of condition, and finally a middle ground option that provides for resuscitation except under certain situations.  Previously the law used the word “coma.”  The amendment expands the definition, replacing “coma” with “permanent unconsciousness” and “incurable or terminal condition.”  The terms are defined at length in the amendment.

Perhaps most importantly, with an aim toward curbing elder abuse, the amendment provides for increased reporting requirements for caretakers and agents under power of attorney.  The mechanisms for court review of powers of attorney have been broadened, again with the aim being to combat elder abuse.

The amendment makes a number of additional, smaller changes to the Illinois Power of Attorney Act.  For more information on the changes, or for other probate or elder law issues, contact the Chicago probate lawyers at Horowitz & Weinstein.

Legal Disclaimer.