Recently in Planning for Parents with Minor Children Category

September 11, 2009

How to Choose a Guardian for Your Minor Children

Choosing guardians for your minor children as you go through the Michigan estate planning process can be a difficult decision for parents.  Often times the decision of who to name is one of the major stumbling blocks for parents and one of the major reasons they put off speaking to a Michigan estate planning attorney.  Don't let it be!

Bizdaybuzz.com has an article addressing the issue.  You can read it here: Estate Planning: How to Choose a Guardian.

As Michigan estate planning attorneys who have as one of our focuses helping parents with minor children with their estate planning, we have some exercises that we walk our clients through to help them come to a decision and to help them move forward.

Christopher J. Berry, Esq., A Bloomfield HIlls Trust and Estates Lawyer, is a Partner with The Law Offices of Witzke Berry PLLC, which practices in the areas of Michigan Revocable Living Trusts, Living Wills, and Michigan Medicaid Planning, serving Metro Detroit, including Oakland County, Macomb County, and Wayne County from their office in Bloomfield Hills.  We can be reached at 248-971-1700.

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July 10, 2009

Back to School | Protecting Your Children in an Emergency

It will be August shortly and if you have children or grandchildren they will be heading back to school or off to college. Now is the time to take the necessary legal steps to make sure that they are protected in case of an emergency.

As Michigan estate planning attorneys, we can help you. Here are some tips:

  • For minor children (under the age of 18), make sure that ALL of the people who take care of your children-including grandparents, babysitters, older siblings, neighbors, family friends, etc- have your up-to-date contact information, including changes to your cell phone numbers.  Don't forget the emergency contact list on your fridge or bulletin board.
  • For minor children it is also important that the appropriate people have the ability to make decisions about your child (e.g. in a medical emergency) if you can't be reached or are out of town.  This is done by having a Michigan estate planning attorney draft the appropriate legal documents.
  • For young adult children (over the age of 18), make sure that he or she has executed the necessary health care power of attorney, financial power of attorney, and HIPAA authorization that is prepared by a Michigan estate planning lawyer.  This is important, especially if they are off to college, because your "children" are now legally an adult in Michigan now, and you do not have the power or access to their medical information any more.
These steps can make a critical difference to the treatment your child receives in an emergency and also the information you will be able to receive as a parent if something happens to your child when you are unavailable.

Speak with your Michigan estate planning attorney who focuses on estate planning for parents to make sure your children are protected.

Christopher J. Berry, Esq., A Bloomfield Hills Trusts and Wills Attorney, is a Partner with The Law Offices of Witzke Berry PLLC, which practices in the areas of Estate Planning, Trusts and Estates, and Michigan Probate Litigation..
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June 5, 2009

Are your kids Trust-Worthy?

"Even middle-class folks can benefit from trusts when it comes to estate planning.  That's because children under the age of 18 can't directly inherit more than a small amount of money," and when they reach 18 they can inherit everything, which is a scary proposition when you think about your college aged child inheriting a lump some of money.

The above quote was from an article in the WSJ, which you can read here.

The article goes on to talk about how setting up a revocable living trust as a better alternative that allows them to exert more control over their assets once they are gone.  As, Michigan estate planning attorneys who work with living trusts on a daily basis, one of the things we often see is that our clients like to utilize revocable living trusts to delay when their children inherit their money.  For example, instead of inheriting outright at age 18, maybe a distribution of 1/3 at 25, 1/3 at 30, and remainder at 35 makes more sense since the child will be more mature and able to handle the money at later ages.

Planning for parents with minor or college age children is one of the focuses of our Michigan estate planning law firm.  Give us a call if you have any questions.

-Christopher J. Berry, Esq.
Metro Detroit Estate Planning Attorney
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May 29, 2009

Do You Have Kids? You Need an Estate Plan, no excuses!

When you have loved ones,such as you children depending on you, you have no excuse not to create an estate plan.  If you have children you MUST plan for the situation where you are removed from the equation. 

Some questions to think about.  Who would care for your children if you were gone?  Financially how would your children be cared for?  Would you want your children to inherit everything at age 18 with absolutely no strings attached?  If the person you initially named to care for your children predeceased you or was unable to care for your kids, who could you name as back up.

It is an absolute must that you provide for the guardianship of your children in not only your last will and testament, but also separate guardianship forms.  Additionally, you should name temporary guardians if your primary guardians are out of state.  Next you should consider how your children will be provided for financially.  Consider living trusts and life insurance.

You may not have any perfect answers now, but it is important not to procrastinate.  Set up a time now to meet with a Michigan estate planning lawyer who can walk you through these difficult decisions with care and counseling.  We dedicate a portion of our estate planning practice to helping parents with minor children navigate these important issues.

-Christopher J. Berry, Esq.
Bloomfield Hills Estate Planning Attorney
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May 20, 2009

Michigan Estate Planning Basics

michigan-estate-lawyer.jpgIf have you ever dealt with a parent's or loved one's estate,  financial affairs or Michigan probate, you most likely know what a pain it is to administer their estate, clean up their affairs, and locate important documents and records.  I wanted to provide you some straightforward easily digestible advice on how make sure you don't leave your loved ones in a lurch.

First and foremost, you must get organized.  You should begin creating a list of all your assets, liabilities, accounts, passwords.  Compile all of your records in one place and make sure they are safe and that your proposed personal representative, trustee, or whoever will handle you affairs when you pass, knows where to locate your documents.

The next step is to identify what your goals are with regard to when you become incapacitated or pass away.  Do you want to protect your assets in case you go into a Michigan nursing home?  Do you want to protect your children from poor financial choices with your inheritance?  Do you want to avoid the hassle, stress, cost of Michigan probate? Do you want to provide for your pets to be taken care of and not euthanized?  There are many difficult decisions to take into account.  We can provide you a list of some of the items to think about with regard to Michigan estate planning.  Just contact us using the contact form on this page.

Third, you need to select your team of advisors including your Michigan estate planning lawyer or Michigan elder law attorney.  Your attorney will assist you, along with your accountant and financial professional in matching the legal environment to your goals to create an individualized Michigan estate plan to meet your goals.  Through meeting with your Michigan estate planning professionals, you will have a Michigan estate plan that may include  living trusts, wills, general durable powers of attorney, health care powers of attorney, HIPAA authorizations and living wills.  Though Michigan statute does not recognize a living will.

Next, there should be a review of how your assets are titled.  For example, who is the beneficiary of your life insurance?  Should it be titled into the trusts or should the life insurance go outright to beneficiaries?  What about the IRA's and 401k's?  These are all questions and items that will be reviewed with your Michigan estate planning attorney and the rest of your estate planning team.

Next, it is important to speak with all of your family members about what decisions you made and how your Michigan estate plan will be implemented and how it will take effect.  If our clients are interested, we have a "family meeting" where we have our clients bring in any family members or children to answer any questions in a round table format so that all of the loved ones and beneficiaries are on the same page.

Last, you need to review your estate plan annually once completed.  There can be changes in your family situation, changes in Michigan or Federal law, or changes in the tax laws.  Any changes could have drastic effects on your estate plan.  We bring our clients in every year as a part of our Foundations program to ensure that their estate plan is just effective the day they signed there documents as it is the day the the documents take effect.

The key to Michigan estate planning is taking action.  You can't wait until the day you need an estate plan to start thinking about estate planning.

-Christopher J. Berry, Esq.
Michigan Estate Planning Attorney
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December 20, 2008

Family Matters in Estate Planning | Choosing A Guardian For Your Children

As a Michigan estate planning lawyer, one of the most important decisions I walk my clients through during the estate planning process is who to choose for guardians of their minor children.  This is a key decision if the children are orphaned.  You do not want them spending time in foster care or letting a judge who is not familiar with the family dynamics choose who will raise the children.

In Michigan, even if you are separated or divorced, the surviving biological parent will continue to be the legal guardian, assuming their is not a court order that the surviving parent is unfit. However, if their is no surviving biological parent, then the choice falls to you and must be made by appointing a guardian in your estate planning documents.

This decisions is one of the most difficult decisions for parents to make.  As a Michigan estate planning lawyer, this is one of the areas where my counsel aids in the decision making.  You won't find this assistance in wills bought from office supply stores, Suze Ormand trust kits, Quicken Willmaker, or Legalzoom downloaded estate plans.  This is another area where estate planning is more than just preparing documents. 

Continue reading "Family Matters in Estate Planning | Choosing A Guardian For Your Children" »

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