The Plain English Legal Podcast

Trust Maintenance

PODCAST--Using a revocable living trust in your estate plan to avoid probate can be one of the most effective ways to handle your own estate planning. Unfortunately, many people ignore the ongoing tasks and annual check-ins to make sure that their trust is still operating at peak performance. But what really needs to be done to keep your estate plan in top condition? In this podcast recorded in historic Colonial Williamsburg, estate planning attorney Jeffrey G. Marsocci runs through the three main “checklist” items he runs through in Annual Review Meetings with his own clients.

Check out the YouTube version here: https://youtu.be/vo1GfUulhI0

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Medicaid Whoopsies

When it comes to Medicaid Planning, there are tons of loopholes that can help a family preserve a lot of assets and have a loved one still qualify for nursing home Medicaid. On the other hand, this also means there are a lot of opportunities for people to “go rogue” and make mistakes without discussing things with the Medicaid Planning Team. In this two-part video, I review some of the mistakes big enough to get specific clauses put into our engagement agreements to emphasize the importance of coloring within the lines. While this video is meant for the general public, it also can provide some insight to attorneys and other professionals who want to do Medicaid Planning for their clients.

Schedule A is Missing!

You know a plan is broken into a thousand-piece puzzle when the pages of the trust were taken out of the binder, put back out of order, and some pages are missing. But what happens when the “all-important” (sarcasm inserted here) Schedule A is one of those missing pages? It turns out in California that it could mean a lot, IF you take the trust to court. However, there is ONE solution that would have made all of the estate problems disappear.

Should I Make My Parents Trustees?

One of the most important decisions you can make in estate planning is choosing the right trustees. A frequent question that comes up when speaking with my clients who have younger children is whether or not to name their own parents as trustees. They often believe that naming someone older than them is not a good idea. But is it? In this installment, I review the topic of age when thinking of trustees, as well as the one thing many attorneys fail to do. Check out the YouTube video at https://youtu.be/qQw21OCiSeE

Health Care Power of Attorney vs Living Will vs DNR

The best topics for videos come from my clients’ questions, and we have been getting this one quite a bit lately: what’s the difference between a Health Care Power of Attorney, a Living Will, and a Do Not Resuscitate order?

FREE "Estate Planning Basics" Audiobook

Free audiobook for a limited time. The quality is not great, and the audiobook is being redone as part of an online revocable living trust planning system with better quality audio. In the meantime, enjoy this free edition for the content rather than the audio quality.

Unnecessary Trust Provisions… And One BIG Reason to Keep Them Anyway

“But this doesn’t apply to us!” It’s common enough to see lots of language in trusts and other legal documents that are ‘boilerplate’ that should stay in anyway. In this video, I review some of the most commonly questioned provisions and why they should be kept anyway, including the one BIG overriding reason.

For the video version on YouTube, go here: https://youtu.be/TwsdiAccKRg

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I'm Moving States... Is My Trust Still Good? The Documents You MUST Redo

I’m Moving States… Is My Trust Still Good? The Documents You MUST Redo

I get this question all the time when clients move to my state, or when my clients are moving to other states. “Is my trust still good?” The question really is “Do I need to update my estate plan?” In this video, I cover the checklist process in reviewing whether or not a revocable living trust is just fine, needs a tune up, or should be scrapped and redone altogether. Plus, I review the documents that absolutely MUST be redone when moving to another state.

For the video version, check it out on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/K-qm4wZrNBo

Who Should Be Your Trustee? And One Thing You Should NEVER Do!

One of the most important estate planning items on your checklist is choosing the right trustees to handle things if you become incapacitated or pass on. But how do you go about choosing them? Should you pick an attorney? Your children? Your best friend? In this podcast, I go through the basic decision-making framework as well as cover the one thing you should NEVER do.

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Car “Accident” Leads to $TD Case and $5.2 Million Bill to Car Insurance Company

The media loves a sensationalized story, especially once that gets people angry enough to share and comment on social media. When a woman won $5.2 million from car insurance company GEICO because she contracted an STD in the backseat of one of their insured vehicles, the Internet went wild. Cries of a judicial system run amok, activist judges needing to be fired, and runaway juries doing stupid things started being screamed from the comment sections. But what REALLY happened?

This was not about activist judges, runaway juries, or a messed up judicial system, but instead it was about binding arbitration and what happens when a company neglects to put on a real case when it needed to.

Original Article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/10/geico-woman-std-car-insurance-company-must-pay

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#lawsuit #arbitration #caraccident