If you thought you were going to inherit from a recently deceased relative but through some shenanigans a will was written that leaves you out, you might be able to contest the will in probate court. The first thing you need to do is to contact an attorney experienced in estate litigation as soon as possible so that no important deadlines are met. You should go to the initial meeting with the attorney prepared.

You need to be prepared to tell the attorney the entire story as you know it. An estate litigation attorney has many tools available, but the attorney can only determine the best course of action if you tell the attorney an accurate story. If you have any documentation that supports your position, take it to the meeting with you. You will also want to tell the attorney about any potential witnesses you have that support your position. For example, if a cousin heard your grandfather say that you were part of his will, make sure the attorney has the cousin’s name, address and phone number.

After you meet with the estate litigation attorney, your job is not done. For the most part, the attorney will be able to handle all of the legal matters. You will need to be available though for any court-ordered depositions and hearings. Stay in communication with the attorney.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

How many kids do you have? For you, it’s probably a simple question and you instantaneously know the answer. You might have no problem coming up with the number, but it can be more difficult for the courts to come up with the answer as you can have many different types of children that are treated differently under the law. For this reason, you should make sure that your estate plan covers all of your children.

When the law speaks of children, it normally means your natural children and your adopted children. However, you can also have step-children. You can also have posthumous children. That is, children born after you pass away. For a man it’s easy to imagine a child being born from a pregnant spouse after you pass away. However, women can have posthumous children too. In fact, with today’s ability to preserve eggs and semen, posthumous children are possible for men and women years after they pass away.

Talk to your estate planning attorney about all of your children. Your attorney can handle any complications and make sure that your estate plan accounts for all of the children you want it to, including posthumous children.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

After you get divorced, it seems like there is an endless list of things you need to do to get all of your legal affairs in order. You probably thought all of the legal things would be done once the court granted the divorce. However, after you are divorced you should have your attorney update your estate plan.

Ordinarily, if you pass away before you have a chance to update your estate plan, the law assumes that you meant to take your ex-spouse out of your estate. However, there are two problems with this. First, it leaves a black hole in your estate plan. Someone else will have to be named as the beneficiary or heir to inherit your ex-spouse’s share of the estate. That person may not be the person you would have wanted. Secondly, it risks a change in the law or a court determining that another law applies. For example, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently ruled that federal law preempted a state law that would have prevented an ex-spouse from being the beneficiary of a retirement account, which followed the precedent of the United States Supreme Court.

You do not know what a court might rule in the future. The best choice is not to rely on a court’s ruling and to change your estate plan when you get divorced.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you have been to an experienced estate planning attorney and had an estate plan drawn up, you may think that you do not ever have to do anything else. When your attorney sends you a letter in the mail about updating your estate plan, you might even think that it’s the attorney just making more work and asking for your money unnecessarily. Don’t be so quick to throw that letter away.

The simple truth is that experienced estate planning attorneys are busy. They are not sending you letters about updating your estate plan to make themselves even busier. The laws that govern your estate plan are subject to change and, from time to time, they do change. When there has been a significant change in the law, you should revisit your estate plan with your attorney. Not doing so could cost your heirs money and time spent in expensive probate litigation. Your attorney monitors every change in the law and can quickly update your estate plan to make sure that you have the best possible plan whatever the current laws are.

The next time you receive a letter from the attorney who drew up you estate plan, make sure you read it. The letter might contain important information about a change in the law that could affect your estate. If so, call your attorney and have your estate plan updated.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you are having an estate planning attorney draft your estate plan documents, you will hear a lot of terms that you might not be familiar with. Even if you know what terms generally mean, it is important to be familiar with their specific, legal meanings. For example, what exactly is an attorney in fact for healthcare decisions and what does that person do?

One document that your attorney might discuss with you is a healthcare power of attorney. In this document you designate someone to make medical decisions on your behalf when you are incapacitated. This is the person who doctors and other health care professionals will ask to make the decisions about your care and treatment. The person you designate is known as your attorney in fact for healthcare decisions. Colloquially, the person is referred to as your healthcare power of attorney. The sole function of the job is to make the healthcare decisions when you are unable to answer the questions that doctors might have.

If you come across any other terms or positions in your estate plan documents that you are unfamiliar with, ask your attorney what they mean. These are important documents and they contain your signature. It is important that you know what they mean.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Everyone knows about the Terry Schiavo incident, but what they may not know is that it could have been avoided with proper planning. As part of your overall estate plan, you can have your attorney prepare a simple document called an Advance Directive for Healthcare. That document tells the doctors what to do when you are not able to tell them.

In an Advance Directive for Healthcare, you can tell doctors whether to give you nutrition and water. You can tell them whether to extend your life with life-support machines. You can tell them whether to perform live-saving procedures, such as CPR. None of those directives come into effect every time you go into a hospital, of course. The directives in your Advance Directive for Healthcare only come into play if three things are true. First, you have to be incapacitated and unable to express your wishes. Second, you have to be terminally ill. Finally, the doctors must certify that you have no hope of recovery from the terminal condition.

What happens to you when you are in a terminal condition and have no chance of recovery should be your decision. Making an Advance Directive for Healthcare is the way to make it your decision when you do not have the capacity to tell the doctors what you want. Talk to an attorney about your wishes and let your attorney draft a document to give you a voice in your end-of-life healthcare decisions.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

You may have heard that you can protect your assets after you pass away by giving them to your heirs during your lifetime. In some cases, this is true. However, you should not assume that doing so is the best option for you. Instead, speak to an estate planning attorney who knows what the latest laws are and ask what your choices are.

An attorney can look at the entirety of your estate and take into consideration what you want to happen to your assets after you pass away. Based on that information, the attorney will then go over your options with you and let you know the benefits and drawbacks of the different options.

Whether gifting during your lifetime is the best option changes with every change in the law. It often seems like it changes with each new congressional session. For this reason, you should not rely on information that you may have heard in the past. Estate planning attorneys study the new laws as they pass so that they can inform about your options using up to date information.

Speak to an attorney before deciding to gift your money. If you do not undertake a gifting plan properly, you or your heirs may face unintended and detrimental consequences. An attorney will help you to avoid that eventuality.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you have an attorney draft a healthcare power of attorney document for you, you need to tell the attorney who to designate as your agent in the event that you are incapacitated. However, it is not enough to just speak with your attorney about it. You also need to speak with your designated agent under your healthcare power of attorney.

Whoever you designate to act on your behalf is the person that medical professionals will look to for decisions about your treatment. That person will only make decisions when you cannot. The agent is supposed to make decisions based upon what is in your best interests and what you would decide, if you could make the decisions. However, if your agent does not know what your wishes are, then he or she cannot express them to medical professionals.

Talk to the person you want to designate and communicate what you want to happen in different circumstances. Your attorney can give you suggestions about the different circumstances you should discuss with your designated agent. Also, make sure to inform your agent if you change your mind about what you want. The only way to make sure that your wishes are carried out is to let your agent know what your wishes are.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Parents who have children with special needs should make sure that their children are adequately cared for after the parents pass away. Special needs children sometimes require financial assistance for the duration of their lifetimes, making planning more challenging than it is for other children. An estate planning attorney can assist you to make sure that your child is cared for.

If your special needs child will need financial assistance and cannot manage his or her own money, your attorney can setup a trust to dispense the funds as they are needed. Often the attorney can also act as the trustee who administers the trust. Thus, the same attorney will continuously make sure that your special needs child has the funds necessary to maintain his or her lifestyle after you pass away. In some cases, you may need to appoint a guardian for your special needs child. Your estate planning attorney can also help you choose an appropriate guardian and ensure that the necessary documents have been prepared.

Speak to your attorney about what will happen to your special needs child after you pass away. Do not leave the care of your children up to state agencies that are often short on funding.  An experienced attorney can give you peace of mind in knowing that your children will be taken care regardless of what happens to you.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you create a testamentary trust in your Will, you can name almost any responsible adult to act as the trustee. Many people choose to name a friend or family member as trustee. Sometimes, this is a great idea, but sometimes it does not work out as intended. In Oregon, you can name an attorney as the trustee and there are good reasons to do so.

The trustee is charged with conducting the affairs of the trust faithfully and must act as a fiduciary of the beneficiaries of the trust, which means the trustee must act for the benefit of the trust’s recipients. Attorneys are used to acting as beneficiaries for their clients. In the same way that an attorney carries out the wishes of clients in other areas, the attorney trustee carries out your wishes as stated in the trust agreement. In fact, attorneys are subject to discipline if they do not.

Another benefit to naming an attorney as a trustee is that the attorney will act dispassionately in carrying out his or her duties. Friends and family members might develop personal conflicts that make administering the trust more difficult. An unrelated attorney trustee will not have this problem.

Deciding who to name as the trustee of a trust you create is a personal decision that you should make wisely. You have many options and your attorney is one of them.

The Law Offices of Richard B. Schneider, LLC is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.