A Trust Is Cheaper Than A Conservatorship
Friday, May 24, 2019
If you become incompetent (technically, in Oregon, this is called financially incapable) and are unable to handle your finances, someone will have to do this for you.
If you become incompetent (technically, in Oregon, this is called financially incapable) and are unable to handle your finances, someone will have to do this for you.
If a child lives in their parent’s house, and provides a certain level of care for the parent, for at least two years, the parent can give the house to the child without creating a period of Medicaid ineligibility.
It is not uncommon for couples who are committed and have been living together for some time to buy property together.
This can present problems both while the couple stays together (or when one partner dies), and if the couple ever splits up.
If you have no estate plan and are married and have no children, or if you are married and all of your children are also the children of your spouse, your spouse will inherit everything that passes through your probate.
An estate plan, depending on the complexity, can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.
People are often anxious to avoid estate taxes when they pass on.
Federal estate taxes are no longer a problem for most people, since there is no federal estate tax unless the estate is over $11.2 million dollars.
At one time not too long ago, federal estate taxes (death taxes) started at $600,000.
Many people have or had the potential to have to pay estate taxes if they had savings, retirement accounts, and/or a house, when estate tax was due on amounts over $600,000.
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that federal estate taxes are not a worry for most people unless they have (or control, or have given away) well over eleven million dollars ($11,200,000 to be precise).
Affidavits of Heirship can be used to transfer assets of some kinds when the owner is dead, and there is not going to be a probate or a small estate proceeding.
If no probate or small estate affidavit will be filed, sometimes a car owned by someone who has died can be transferred to the heirs at law by an Affidavit of Heirship available at the DMV.