Protect Your Child from Dangerous Guardians
August 15, 2009
Some of the clients who seek our estate planning advice are parents of small children whose primary goal in creating an estate plan is to protect their children. This includes providing for their immediate financial needs, ensuring they will have the means to receive an education, and so forth, but often the very first question these parents ask is about guardianship. Most often they want guidance in choosing the best person to care for their children when they are gone, but sometimes a client asks if there is a way to keep their children out of the hands of abusive or irresponsible relatives. The answer is a resounding “yes”.
Of course, the first thing you should do to keep your children safe from an unsuitable guardian is to execute a Nomination of Guardians in which you name the people who would be good and loving parents. But beyond that, you can execute an Exclusion of Guardians (also known as an Anti-Nomination of Guardians). In this document you name the person or couple who should under no circumstances receive guardianship of your children. You may, in the document, state the reasons why your child should be kept out of the care of this person, but it is not always necessary.
For many parents, the excluded guardian is often a member of their extended family, and they fear that executing so strong a document might break the peace. For this reason, you can request that the Exclusion of Guardians be kept completely confidential. Unless and until the excluded guardian tries to gain guardianship over your children there is really no need for anyone except you and your attorney to be aware of its existence.
There are many valid reasons to execute an Exclusion of Guardians; alcoholism, history of abuse, mental illness, extreme financial irresponsibility, and more. How is a judge or court to know of these reasons unless you tell them? And that is exactly what an Exclusion of Guardians does. If you have any fears along these lines talk to your attorney. You hope the document will never need to be used—never even be seen by any eyes other than your own—but the peace of mind it can bring is invaluable.
The Wall Street Journal: Every Child Deserves a Little Trust
June 4, 2009
If you’ve been weighing the pros and cons of setting up a trust for your young child, wondering if you really have enough assets to warrant such an expense, you must read Stacey L. Bradford’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Deciding if Your Kid Is Trust-Worthy”. In her article Bradford explains why every parent should consider a trust for their minor child, even parents with small estates and few significant assets.
You see, legally, non-adult children cannot inherit large sums of money (and if you have a home or a life-insurance policy then you have “large sums of money” to pass on to your child); if a parent dies and leaves this money directly to a minor child the court will step in and appoint a guardian to manage your child’s money for him—and this guardian may not be the trusted friend or relative whom you might have preferred. A trust will prevent your child from having to grow up with the added level of bureaucracy required by such court-appointed guardianship, and allow you more control over how the money is managed and spent.
Bradford goes on to explain the other benefits of creating a trust for your minor child (paying for education, delaying the age at which your child has outright access to the money, reducing taxes, etc.), She also gives helpful tips about how to choose a trustee, “The trustee holds the purse strings, so don’t delegate this job lightly. You need someone who is trustworthy, is good with money and has great attention to detail.”
Bradford’s article is a great introduction to trusts for parents of young children. And if you find this article helpful, you may want to check out the book from whence it came, The Wall Street Journal’s Financial Guidebook for New Parents.
Procrastination is Not a Planning Tool
May 13, 2009
The number one reason that people die without protecting their assets or their heirs is not that they lack the money to create an estate plan, and it’s not that they don’t know that they need one, or how to create one—It’s procrastination. Most people who die without an estate plan in place do so because they dawdled.
For most of us it’s all too easy to put off thoughts of sickness or death, and all planning for the unlikely—but inevitable—event gets pushed to the wayside. Writer M. P. Dunleavey reminds us in the article Last Things Can’t Wait Till Last that procrastination is not a planning tool and that in actuality, once you buckle down and start, protecting your heirs is not such a difficult process after all; especially if you have the right person helping you.
At our office we agree with Dunleavey’s article to the extent that we want to ensure that you have everything you need to best protect your assets and your heirs without making it unnecessarily complicated. Life insurance, guardianship, planning for Long Term Care, wills and trusts: taken piece by piece they can overwhelm even the staunchest of individuals; but our office can help you sort through each of these issues together, and be confident in your future security and the security of your heirs.
In a world with complicated tax laws, and in which we often have very complicated lives, it’s nice to know that your estate planner is working to make your life simpler.
Jinies.com