From Our “Ask a Question” mailbag: Can a non-citizen spouse inherit land from me, a US citizen, even while a non-resident? My wife lives in India, but I have property in my name here in the United States.
Tag: Spousal Trusts
Ensuring the financial well being of family after death is a fundamental concern for clients when estate planning. By Trust or by Will, various strategies exist to satisfy that concern. Keeping up to date on real cases helps ensure our strategies are appropriately tailored to your needs.
The Orphans’ Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania recently ruled on one family’s strategy in Zucker Estate. This case provides insight into how accurate trust drafting can achieve your financial support goals. The court focuses on the marital trust and critical difference between exclusive and non-exclusive powers of appointment. A factual background will serve as a point of reference for the key takeaways in Zucker.
Crafting an estate plan for a client means listening to what the client wants, explaining options to the client and then drafting a plan to meet the option selected. At times, a client’s circumstances require imaginative ideas. Here are some examples of imaginative estate planning that Klenk Law has utilized recently.
1. Protectors:
It remains a mystery to me why more estate planning attorneys do not use Protectors. A Protector is a person or persons you appoint to oversee a trustee with the power to fire and replace the trustee without the need of an attorney or a court hearing. No court hearing or attorney is necessary? Perhaps that is the reason why estate planning lawyers don’t use them? I use them in almost every trust. Even the most trusted person or bank can have problems, and if these problems negatively affect the trust, the Protector can “protect” the beneficiary without months of litigation.
