Category: Estate and Probate

An illness or other major event may require the key players in your life and estate to have to reach for up to date information. Fall is a good time to catch up and review the resource you previously created — or to create one now.

What kind of information and materials may be needed? The list can be extensive based upon your life activities and your assets. But the core is easy and powerful to have at hand. 

Gather in one file, secure on-line storage or other accessible location the following:

Estate Documents:   Powers of Attorney for Healthcare and for Property, Living Trust Declaration, Last Will & Testament, Transfer On Death Instruments and Advance Directives. It’s a good time to review them to make sure that updates can be done, if necessary. And be sure to make notes about the location of the originals.

Personal Information:   Birth Certificate, Military Discharge Papers, SSN information, prior Divorce paperwork, Immigration and Naturalization paperwork. Advance information concerning cremation or burial or other plans are also useful.

Key Individuals:   Identify the persons who are key sources of information if something should happen. This include name and contact information for clergy and affiliations, financial advisors, business and property partners, accountant, attorney, and employment information and family contact information, to name a few.

Business & Financial Information:   Contact information and the status of your interest in corporations and LLCs,  partnerships, and joint ventures are important. Include copies of the business paperwork or where to find them. Financial accounts and the nature of the accounts where assets are held; and consider including copies of beneficiary designations for those accounts as well. Consider information about personal loans to or from others, so that these matters don’t fall through the cracks. And don’t forget insurance policy information, whether life insurance, personal property and real property insurance binders, and key man policy information.

Debt Information:   Include copies of or information concering mortgages, personal property loans, credit cards and credit facilities.

This is a start. It’s not one-size-fits-all. And the more complete that you can be, the better your family and the people that are part of your estate planning will be at bringing the important information to use when necessary. This way, the important people around you can focus on you and your spouse and children, instead of having to chase documents and information.

Reach out to your Estate Planning Attorney to be sure to start the discussion. Don’t have one? Call or email to Attorney Marc Sherman.

In Illinois, after someone passes away we can use a Small Estate Affidavit to transfer property from the deceased person’s estate to their heirs or beneficiaries without going through the formal probate process in every instance. For many years, estates valued at $100,000 or less, and that do not include real estate that is only in the deceased person’s name, have been more quickly and easily administered without having the expense of opening a formal Probate Case in court.

Attorneys have often grumbled that the $100,000 limitation for use of this Small Estate Affidavit is outdated. Often, by the time the family adds up the value of a car, checking and savings account, and other assets, the amount exceeds $100,000 in value and they find themselves having to deal with the expense and time involved in moving through the probate court process.

Illinois Governor Pritzker will soon have a new bill on his desk that will change the upper limit for the Small Estate Affidavit up to $150,000. In fact, as important as the increased amount, is that the law will change so that we will now no longer include the value of the decedent’s motor vehicles in the calculation of the threshold Small Estate Affidavit amount. 

For those currently involved in trust planning and those clients who previously prepared their living trusts and are involved in funding their trusts, if the Bill (SB 83) becomes law there will no longer be a need to consider transferring valuable motor vehicles to the trust.

We will keep an eye on the Governor’s activities, since the Bill would become law immediately after it is signed. The use of the new Small Estate Affidavit threshold will not be retroactive. If your loved one has passed away prior to enactment of the new Law the legislature has provided that the older threshold is still applied.

If you have questions about the use of a Small Estate Affidavit, or questions about other aspects of Estate Planning or the Probate Court process, reach out to Marc Sherman or Maureen Meersman. Contact information is here: https://mshermanlaw.com/contact/

The answers are really not complicated.

We can select a form from a Google Search, or use an on-line service to produce a form. Sometimes it’s purely a financial decision – even though most attorneys will prepare simple estate planning documents for a flat fee rather than their hourly rates that run into the hundreds. 

But, it’s no different than representing yourself in Court, or working on your own to negotiate a contract or lease agreement. You may be lucky and no problems arise. Or, you may find yourself reaching out to have an attorney start over from scratch or spend time fixing the issues, sometimes early in the creation process and sometimes later, when something blows up.

The On-Line Downloads Almost Never Come With Warnings!

We are so used to having documents handed to us and being told to fill and sign, that we have become somewhat numb to the fact that the information we input is often limited by the boxes to check or by the directions on what to fill. And it happens repeatedly — every week. Subscription forms, financial or bank forms, health forms, and forms for others, like our kids.

Even where the choice in the box reads “Other”, nothing on the form guides you to what that “other” option or situation may be or can be. If the on-line form asks who you would like to have act as your Power of Attorney Agent and the choices are to name a person, or check the box for your spouse, or your child, are there other options and what are the real considerations you should think about? You bet.

If you use one of the on-line document creation services, there’s almost always an opportunity to “chat” with someone if you have a question during the document creation process. But who are you chatting with? An AI bot? An attorney in your state or even in your country? And how many years of law practice has that attorney had? When an avatar appears with the chat, shouldn’t we be concerned? Of course.

On the other hand, when you work with an Attorney to discuss and create important Powers of Attorney, or a Last Will & Testament, or a Living Trust, the many concerns and thoughtful considerations that should be a part of the document creation come to life.

In fact, quite often the folks who have good intentions and confidence that they have completed the on-line or downloadable form find themselves perhaps years later learning that the documents were not properly witnessed or signed. Learning that there is a problem when you are first using the form is an expensive mistake. And it’s often a time-consuming and anxiety-producing situation.

These are important documents that are meant to be ready and properly prepared to be used in emergency situations. You are not going to call LegalZoom or Trust&Will from the hospital when there’s a problem with the Power of Attorney for Healthcare, or from the bank when there’s an issue with acceptance of the Power of Attorney for Property/Financial matters. Indeed, you won’t even know if the Last Will & Testament you prepared accomplishes your heartfelt directions following your passing! But your family will know, since they are the ones who may find themselves learning that your intentions as you tried to express them in your Will are not going to be followed by the probate court.

The On-Line Forms Make It Easier To Take Care Of This In The Evenings Or On Weekends, You Say?

Sure, it’s less stressful to be able to work on creating your estate materials when you are at your kitchen table. Taking a paid day off work to visit the Attorney’s office is no fun. Still, there are many times when the Attorney will be able to work with you either before or after hours, or on a weekend, and these days even via Zoom or other video conference platforms. And, frankly, these estate materials are important enough that if you can take part of a day to visit the Attorney’s office, you should.

My Cousin (Or My Friend) Did It.

This would be a great excuse, if this was a one-size-fits-all planning situation. The truth is in the facts:

There is a reason that Attorneys who don’t work in estate planning reach out to consult with other Attorneys who do! Or, better yet, they reach out to have their knowledgeable estate planning colleague prepare their parents’ or kids’ materials. Enough said?

If You Have Downloaded An On-Line Form, But Now Understand That You Should Speak With An Attorney, How Do You Start?

Start with an email or call to Attorneys Marc Sherman or Maureen Meersman, who can set up a time to discuss your needs, your timing and share the cost and value of properly prepared estate materials for you and your family. Reach out here: https://mshermanlaw.com/contact/