Our Michigan probate litigation law firm has handled a few probate litigation cases from clients in the Farmington Hills area.  It’s like coming full circle since I grew up in Farmington Hills area.  Specifically, I grew up in on 11 mile near Middlebelt, in Farmington Hills.

Who knew I’d grow up to be a probate lawyer servincing clients in Farmington Hills, Michigan?

Estate planning with revocable living trusts answer at least three main questions which includes: Who gets what?  How do you minimize settlement costs, such as probate and estate taxes? And, who is in control after the trustmaker passes away?

Barron’s has a great article entitled “The Five Biggest Ways to Bungle a Trust” that describes many of the mistakes that do-it-yourselfers face when they go at trust administration alone.  As Michigan trust administration and Oakland county probate lawyers, we are often brought in to clean up theses messes.

The first way people screw up trust administration involves keeping faulty records.  Generally trustees in Michigan must provide at least annual accountings to the beneficiaries.  Often, these accountings are slapped together at the last minute by an overwhelmed trustee.  As Michigan trust administration and estate administration lawyers, we professionally manage this process for our clients.  Whether we handle it in-house or outsource it to highly qualified CPA’s, our client’s understand that it’s professionally done and the beneficiaries of the trust appreciate the clarity.

Another way that trustees botch the trust administration process is by failing to diversify the trust assets.  It may be tempting to sit on a big chunk of a single stock, but often times, as prudent investors, it’s important for the trustee to diversify the portfolio so as to minimize risk for the beneficiaries.

Yet another trustee issue we see is that of biased distributions.  Trustees owe a fiduciary duty to the current beneficiaries and the remaindermen.  Therefore, a trustee cannot favor one beneficiary over another or allow any personal bias into the decision making.

The fourth area we, as Oakland county trust administration lawyers, see trustees making poor judgements is in the concept of the trustee expecting a payday.   Trustees, when acting without the aid of an trust administration attorney, often expect at the end of the day they will get a windfall for the efforts, when in reality, more often than not, they are only entitled to reasonable expenses and fees.  Quite often this is a source of probate or trust litigation.

Lastly, as a trustee acting alone, often times we’ll see that they have a false sense of safety.  A trustee acting without experienced Michigan trust administration counsel can feel that there is an entitlement and honor in serving the role of trustee at the other beneficiaries will defer to any judgements or decisions you make.  This generally cannot be further from the truth.  Quite often beneficiaries are looking for any little mistake a trustee makes, even in the best of families.

As a Metro Detroit estate planning and probate lawyer, I try to keep up on the latest news and blogs regarding probate and estate planning in Michigan.  That’s when I ran accross my friend and colleague, Grand Rapids Estate Planning Lawyer, Michael Lictherman’s latest blog post entitlted “Tips On Keeping Your Michigan Estate Out of Court.”

In his post he references another article and has a few quality tips on keeping your estate out of the probate court, which most of our clients wish to do.

It looks like Redd Foxx’s estate is causing all types of legal issues for the Las Vegas attorneys who are trying to wrap up the estate. It seems that upon his passing Redd Foxx owed more than $3.6 Million to the IRS. After some bumbling by one of Foxx’s daughters in administering the estate, a Las Vegas City Administrator is now in charge of trying to knock the estate out of the red and into the black. One interesting item is that the there is the possibility of the life story of Redd Foxx being sold, which could provide the estate with a necessary shot in the financial arm. You can read more of the AOL story at Trying to Get Foxx’s Estate Out of the Red.

The Elder Law Prof Blog has an interesting little post dealing with the Hong Kong Billionaire, Nina Wang’s estate. Apparently, Ms. Wang who was known as “Little Sweeite” had a will drawn up in 2002 leaving her estate to a charity. A Judge just ruled that a “feng shui will” from 2006 would be invalidated due to Ms. Wang’s signature being forged. You can read the post here: Feng Shui Master won’t Inherit Eccentric Billionaire’s Estate.

With Michigan Estate Planning, there are a few basic things that you need to know.

First, no matter what your net worth is, how much in assets you have, how much debt you have, you need an estate plan. In Michigan, once you turn 18 you are legally an adult. So, even if you’re a college age adult who lives at home with your parents, there is a certain level of estate planning that should be done. That is you need, what our office calls, a disability plan. A disability plan plans for your disability or incapacity.  We would put together a Patient Advocate Designation (which is the Michigan equivalent to a health care power of attorney), HIPAA Authorization, and a Financial Power of Attorney that most likely would name your parents as decision makers and agents.

Now that we’ve established that if you’re over the age of 18, you need the disability documents, the next step would be once you have assets (now matter how meager) or children, it is important to plan for your assets and children.  This is done through using Revocable Living Trusts and Last Wills and Testaments.  Whether you opt for a Living Trust based estate plan or a Will based estate plan will depend on your goals.  Remember a Last Will and Testament only gives instructions to the Michigan Probate court on how to administer your estate, it does not avoid probate.

Lastly, it is important to consult a Michigan estate planning attorney in preparing your estate plan.  Proper Michigan estate planning involves more than buying Nolo Willmaker software or reading the latest Suze Orman Trust Kit book.  It involves analyzing your goals and situation and using the estate planning tools we’ve discussed in the most effective and cost effective way.