http://www.estateplanning-mi.com A Michigan Estate Planning Lawyer's Thoughts Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:37:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Living trusts have been aggressivly marketed to the Michigan public.  Unfortunatly, there are many non-lawyers out their marketing trust kits in Michigan or trust preperation services.  Buying one of these "trust kits" can be a huge financial mistake that not only effects you but also your loved ones. The targeted customers ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/11/18/the-problem-with-michigan-trust-kits/ Wathcing the news today and they quoted a Kiplingers article that offered some questions to ask your financial planner during these turbulent times.  Those questions were: How have your investments performed? How do your investments meet time horizons? What adjustments have been made due to the turbulent economy? How and when will the planner ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/11/11/what-to-ask-your-financial-planner-in-this-turbulent-market/ Every Tuesday I have a meeting with other business people in the area and we each talk a few minutes about our practice.  As a Michigan estate planning lawyer I talked about the need to review your estate plan.  I was asked a question about how often to review your ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/11/11/tuesday-topic-when-to-update-your-estate-plan-in-michigan/ David Goldman, a Jacksonville estate planning attorney, and the author of the Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog, wrote a great article on his thoughts regarding Quicken Software to prepare your estate plan titled Using Quicken to prepare a trust: The good, the bad, and the ugly! You can read his ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/11/04/quicken-will-maker-software/ A common question clients have is whether they should put their house into their revocable living trust in Michigan.  Like most questions, my answer is "it depends."  This is where estate planning becomes more than just preparing documents or using software such as Willmaker, Quicken, or Suze Orman.  There is ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/11/03/should-my-house-goto-into-my-trust-in-michigan/ Here are some of last weeks estate planning news across the internet. The Modesto Bee had an article by Valentine Sabuco with the title "Is it time to get your estate planning house in order?".  In the article she states "that estate planning is a very importnat component of everyone's financial ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/11/03/estate-planning-weekend-round-up/ A financial planner friend of mine had me review an estate plan of a couple the other day.  This couple had their estate plan done by one of the many "trust mills" in Michigan. By trust mill, i mean a set up where they only meet their attorney once (if at ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/10/31/the-problem-with-michigan-trust-mills/ An attorney colleague in Michigan just made us estate planners aware of the following scam that is targeting the elderly. We have encountered a scam targeted at seniors. A lady in her late 70s was persuaded by a salesman to sign up as a local representative of a satellite television company, ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/10/30/scam-targeting-the-elderly-in-michigan/ With the economy and real estate values falling to record lows in Michigan, there is a an opportunity to make use of a nifty estate planning technique.  Clients can put assets that have dropped in value into a trust now so that the appreciation occurs outside of your estate for ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/10/30/living-in-your-gifted-house/ The Washington Post had an article about legal fees today.  The premise of the article was that many in-house counsel is requesting outside counsel to work on a more fixed fee basis, instead of an hourly fee basis.  My firm has been operating almost 90% on a fixed fee basis ... http://www.estateplanning-mi.com/2008/10/20/fixed-fees/