Estate Planning for Gun Owners
“R.E.B.I.R.T.H 50” (2018) | Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. | Alpha Tau Chapter
Overland Park Lawyers – Probate inventory
Probate in Overland Park, KS
In Overland Park, a lot of attorneys go through probate like it’s a cookie cutter item. However, I think that a bit of thought about the estate assets in Johnson County is a good idea. Specifically, think about what is needed to be passed. Your account usernames, like Twitter and Facebook, may not need to be listed (although they do need to be found). However, what about your reward point accounts? In Overland Park, lots of clients have accumulated rewards and these can be significant in value.
Below is an article on the Prince estate, which kind of goes into detail on assets and inventory. See more here:
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/probate-inventory-a-public-listing-of-91498/
When I first posted about Prince’s estate, I did not intend to continue providing updates. However, as administration of the estate continues, more and more opportunities arise to discuss how things could have been handled differently (and in many ways, better) with a proper estate plan. Earlier this month, the estate filed an inventory listing the assets of the estate. What is an inventory, and why do people care?
The inventory is put together as a logical and necessary step to determine what assets the estate has. This is necessary to know what assets are available to pay creditors and to ultimately distribute to beneficiaries. The concern for some is that the inventory in an estate becomes a public record (and not just because Prince is a celebrity).
Remember, an estate is a formal procedure through the court system of the state where the individual died or owned property. (If the deceased owned real estate in more than one state, there may be more than one probate). Within a specified time period after opening the estate, the representative of the estate files an inventory describing each asset owned by the estate and its value.
An inventory is relatively detailed. For example, for real estate, the inventory includes the legal description of the property. For vehicles, it includes the make and model. Each bank account and investment account is listed separately with the type of account, the value on date of death, and in some cases, the beneficiary listed on the account. Like other court filings, once filed this becomes a public record. The description of each and every asset and the value are public record, for any person to view.
In Prince’s estate, many of the assets listed on the inventory do not yet have a value listed, because the personal representatives are still in the process of obtaining a valuation. As you may expect, some of the items are very difficult to value, such as his artwork, memorabilia, musical instruments, the rights to his music (including unreleased music), and the “Purple Rain” motorcycle. Multiple appraisers will be hired, each with their own specialty, to provide their independent, professional opinion on the value of the assets. One asset of interest that was relatively easy to value: a collection of 67 gold bars.
An inventory is a necessary step for administering anyone’s trust or estate after death. It would be difficult to distribute the assets without knowing what assets exist. However, the inventory does not always have to be public. For some, the idea of a public record of all assets is quite troubling. Realistically, if you aren’t a celebrity or well-known in the community, there is a good chance no one will bother to pull the inventory from your estate. However, if it is a concern for you, various estate planning methods may ease those concerns, such as use of a revocable trust, A revocable trust (also known as a living trust) is created during your life to own your assets. You control the trust and can revise the terms at any time. Upon your death, a successor trustee takes over and distributes the assets as set forth in the trust. If the revocable trust is properly drafted and funded, you can avoid a formal probate process with the courts. An inventory would still be created, but would not need to be filed with the court.
The Eastman Law Firm
4901 West 136th Street Ste. 240
Leawood, KS 66224
http://theeastmanlawfirm.com/
Legal Issues Affecting Businesses
Business Law Matters
For many businesses, the legal matters can appear to be pretty simple in nature. However, these matters can easily bloom into a complicated mess that can create massive headaches or even endanger the very existence of the business in the future.
For example, if you have a business lawyer in Kansas City, you would probably receive advice to get your contracts reviewed before you enter into them. We know of a company that decided to outsource their transportation of goods. They didn’t want to go through the tedious and expensive process of hiring a good lawyer, so they went ahead and entered into an agreement on their own. They read the documents and felt comfortable with the language.
However, after their vendor was in a truck accident, they were contacted by a Kansas City truck accident attorney who informed them that they were going to be liable for the entire wreck, especially given the indemnity clause in the contract.
They contacted their KC Auto Insurance representative, who told them that their own insurance policy would not be effective because the policy did not apply to transportation for the selling of goods, but only for the personal use of vehicles for the company.
This led to an unfortunate series of lawsuits, which eventually led the company to file chapter 13 bankruptcy just to get rid of the lawsuit damages that were incurred – not to say anything about the lawyers fees that they incurred along the way.
The conclusion is simple, hire a good corporate attorney to review your legal documents so that you can be assured of continuous existence of your business.
What is the Difference between Trusts and Wills?
Estate Planning – Wills and Trusts
Planning your estate is not a one-size-fits-all choice, and numerous individuals have listened to bits of information from different sources regarding estate strategies, that simply adds more confusion to the situation. What’s even more is that much of the complication stems from well intentioned, but misleading and incorrect guidance.
Still, we get a lot of questions about estate planning, such as:
1. What is the difference between a trust and a will?
2. If I have a trust, do I require a will (as well as vice versa)?
In order to much better recognize which documents you need for your very own one-of-a-kind situation, it is essential to initial recognize just what purpose each document serves.
Revocable Trusts
Wills are very suggested for almost everybody, and Trusts (also known as revocable or living trusts) are also a core tool in planning your estate. Trusts, in specific, are an essential device as a method to prevent probate (more on trusts later in this article). In most states, the probate procedure is rather extensive and also expensive. I do find some people are uncertain specifically what probate is and why it is something that most people would prefer to avoid.
Probate
Probate is merely the method the court processes an individual’s estate. If I passed away without a trust or a will (called intestate succession), the court would certainly handle the process of establishing just how my possessions need to be dispersed. If you are lucky, this procedure can take 8 to 10 months for a simple matter to be executed the probate process. Generally, this suggests that your properties will be “off-limits” to your heirs until the court has actually finalized everything. Not simply is it an incredibly slow, a problem on your inheritors and also a time consuming process, it can be very costly. Legal fees can either be a percentage of the estate or an hourly rate. Either way, it really diminishes the amount left in the estate
Wills
Ok, so now that you have a understanding of what probate is, we now to require to consider exactly what a will is. One point to note is that many people don’t understand that even if you have a will, you will still get to experience the probate process. Wills offer a vital objective, particularly when they are component of a comprehensive plan for your estate. A Will determines who gets your property. Also, a will spells out, in the terrible instance that both parents pass away, who will take care of your children.
Trusts
Trusts and also Wills seem similar, but are really different legal documents. The trust does not do the very same task as the will as well as it’s vital that anyone taking into consideration a detailed estate strategy know the differences. As we talked about recently, one crucial function of a will is that it designates guardianship for small youngsters. A trust can do this, but its main purpose is to prevent probate.
You might have heard of Revocable Living Trusts. What is fantastic about this type of trust is that is revocable, which allows you the ability to change it at any time. While being able to customize a trust is really valuable, possibly the most essential attribute, as well as the reason I urge my customers to setup a trust, is that it allows you to stay away from probate.
With a Revocable Living Trust you place your possessions into the trust. While you are living you control the trust. Upon passing away the Trust is basically a set of directions for exactly how you desire your estate to be separated, without the pricey and also prolonged procedure of Probate. For instance, if I have a Revocable Trust and I die, all the possessions I have in my trust will then pass to my beneficiaries whom I have actually named in the trust, really easily and without Probate.
Conclusion
The will might be for guardianship objectives as well as the trust will stay away from probate. There are other things that your Preparing your estate records will certainly aid offer, which we will resolve in the future when I dig deeper into some of the more interesting things you can do with a will and also trust from a preparation viewpoint, yet for the sake of simpleness they are different files and also they work simultaneously together. It comes down to the fact that it’s a set of papers that is crucial for any type of detailed estate strategy to protect your household to the biggest level feasible.
The beginnings of the Supreme Court
In 1800 the Federalists and their prospect, President John Adams, shed the election to Thomas Jefferson. Early in 1801 the lame-duck Federalist Congress achieved a debatable Judiciary Act that developed 58 new judgeships, including 42 justiceships of the peace, for Adams to select. Jefferson complained that the Federalists “have retired into the judiciary as a stronghold.” On the night March 3, 1801, John Marshall, serving as secretary of state, attached the main seal to the payments for the justices of the peace. He did not, nevertheless, provide the commissions. The following day, after Thomas Jefferson was ushered in, he directed the new secretary of state, James Madison, to keep shipping of 17 of the 42 commissions, consisting of that of William Marbury. William Marbury sued for a writ of mandamus to need Madison to hand over his compensation.
The decision in Marbury’s case, written by Principal Justice John Marshall (the very same John Marshall which fastened the seal to Marbury’s compensation– discuss a conflict of passion!) developed and justified the power of judicial assessment. It is the first case checked out by basically every first-year law pupil and is generally considered the greatest of all site situations. Marshall strained to reach his result. The ordinary words of Area 13 of the Judiciary Act indicate that Marbury went to the incorrect court or evoked the incorrect law (or both), but Marshall proceeded as if the suit were accredited by Section 13 and afterwards stated the law unconstitutional because it supposed to broaden the Court’s original territory in infraction of Write-up III. Marbury’s meet was disregarded for absence of jurisdiction. Marshall’s decision– brilliant in its fertilization– enabled the Court to brand name Jefferson a violator of civil rights without releasing an order that the President can have neglected.
Introduction to the Supreme Court
Intro

