One goal of estate planning is to ensure that your assets, including your home, pass to your chosen beneficiaries quickly and with minimal expense. In real estate, a common strategy to avoid probate (the court process of validating a will and distributing assets) is to add others to the title.
Category: Avoid Probate
Help! This Madison, WI Probate Is Taking Forever!
After a loved one dies, their money and property that goes through probate must be distributed to the people legally entitled to it, either according to a last will and testament (also called a will) or the state’s default distribution scheme (found in its intestacy statute). While most people want the settlement...
Trust Funding in Madison, WI: Setting Your Trustee Up for Success
A revocable living trust can serve as a valuable estate planning tool to help ensure that your finances remain well managed if you become incapacitated (unable to manage your affairs while you are alive) and to provide future financial security for your loved ones upon your passing. However, merely signing the trust...
3 Simple Ways to Avoid Probate Costs in Madison, Wisconsin
The bad news: When a person dies owning property in their sole name without a beneficiary, their loved ones will have to go through a court-supervised process called probate to transfer the property out of the deceased person’s name and into the name of intended beneficiaries or heirs at law. Going through...
While You Are Working on Your Golf Game, Don’t Forget to Work on Your Madison, WI Estate Plan
The course stretches out around you, lush and perfectly manicured. You step up to the ball, take a few practice swings, and inhale the morning air. It is a shot you have made hundreds of times. But years of playing golf have taught you that there is no guarantee you will hit...
Nosy Neighbor Nellie Can Find Out About Your Probate in Madison, Wisconsin
Most people think of probate (the process of collecting, managing, and distributing a deceased person’s money and property) as a private process. However, because probate involves the court system, most filings become a matter of public record. That means your nosy neighbor Nellie can simply go to the courthouse or hop online...
Life Estate versus Right of Occupancy Trust: Which Is Right for You in Madison, WI?
Planning for the future of your home can be complicated, especially when you want to ensure that a loved one can continue living there after you are gone. Two common tools for accomplishing this are life estates and right of occupancy trusts. A life estate grants someone the legal right to live...
How to Give Real Property to a Loved One at Your Death Without Probate Court Involvement in Madison, WI
A home is often one of the most important assets that people own. Therefore, most people want to stay in their home until they die and then have a loved one receive it. One common way to pass a home to loved ones is through a will. However, transferring property with a...
Does Your Revocable Living Trust Reduce Your Federal Estate Tax Bill in Madison, WI?
Many believe that once they set up and fund a revocable living trust, property held in the trust will completely avoid federal estate taxes after they die. In reality, a living trust does not provide any unique estate tax avoidance strategies.
The primary mechanisms for reducing estate taxes—the unlimited...
Whom Do You Trust to Make Your Financial Decisions?
You wake up and check your investments over a cup of coffee. That tech stock you have been eyeing continues to trend upward, so you log in to your online brokerage account and buy some shares.
Later in the day, you get a notice that your mortgage payment has...