Downs Law Firm, P.C.
When you have finally decided to move from home to a senior retirement community that has levels of care—or when moving to a personal care/assisted living community—you and your family might not be in the mood to read legal agreements.
Anyone can contribute to a person’s ABLE account, but there are federally-mandated annual contribution limits. In 2019, the total annual contributions that an ABLE account can receive from all sources is $15,000.
What is the right age to inherit? You were pretty mature at 18, right? How old should a young person be before they receive a completely uncontrolled distribution of their inheritance? We ask clients that question many times in a given week, as it is an important component to just about every Will or Revocable Living Trust that we draft. The older I get, the older I think someone should be before they are mature enough to handle money. I used to say 25 was the right age. Now its 30 to 35. The concern is that many millennials today are delaying reaching typical milestones for measuring adulthood. Researcher Lydia Anderson of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University compared U.S. Census data from 1980 with the most recent American Community Survey data from 2015. Comparing 25- to 34-year-olds in 1980 with the same age group today, Anderson found that far fewer millennials are married, live away from their parents, have children of their own, or own their own houses than the baby boomers of the same age group the year Ronald Reagan was elected president. See https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/04/05/study-millennials-delaying-entry-adulthood/ The delay in reaching these thresholds of adulthood is evident. Maybe they are just smarter than I was about being in a rush to grow up. However, counterbalance that with the human tendency to always think the younger generation is less able than yours to handle the world. “The beardless youth… does not foresee what is useful, squandering his money.” Horace1st Century BC “The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth…” Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, Reverend Enos Hitchcock1790 For an interesting collection of more of these, See “The 2,500-Year-Old History of Adults Blaming the Younger Generation” https://qz.com/quartzy/1264118/the-2500-year-old-history-of-adults-blaming-the-younger-generation/ For me, when I reached age 25, I had graduated from law school, paid for my own college and law school (with a few loans), been admitted to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia, and was married. I think I was a responsible 25-year-old. However, I had no real experience handling money and had no idea what raising a family would cost. My life experience then was sharing an apartment two roommates, paying for school and making a car payment. That’s why I lean toward older: its not the level of maturity only, but also the financial experience that should be taken into account. What is the right age? In making this or any other estate planning decision, I think it’s important to bear in mind that doing something is always better than doing nothing. You already have an estate plan, even if you haven’t signed a Will. If you die without any planning, uncontrolled use will be made to a minor person when he or she reaches the age of 18. In my life, that would be the worst possible age to pick. Any older choice is
Probate is what’s left over When someone dies, property will be transferred from them to someone else by Title or Contract. One form of trust transfer is a Revocable Living Trust. When I think of a Trust, I picture a “Box” to take the title of the property. Assets transferred into the trust, or “Funded into the Trust”, do not need to be transferred through the probate process, because the death of the Trust creator does not affect the title of the property. The idea is to put the property into the box while you are alive. If you do so, where is the title when you die? It’s in the Trust, just as it was before death. Probate is not needed to help change title. However, a Living Trust is not a magic box. It will only avoid court for assets that are transferred to it. To avoid Court, you must do work: you need to dedicate the time, effort and persistence required to transfer the titles. For most banks, account numbers stay the same. The checks don’t need to say “Trust” on them as long as the statements do. The account will still be in your social security number, as the trust is not separate taxpayer while the Grantor is living. Not all assets get funded into a Trust. Assets such as Life Insurance, retirement plans, deferred compensation accounts, thrift savings plans, and annuities are handled by beneficiary designation and are not transferred into a revocable trust. Automobiles are not usually transferred into a Trust. We estimate that most of our clients spend 20 to 30 hours on the funding process, mostly in filling in new account forms and waiting for bank personnel to figure out how to do what you are asking. You can take consolation in this: if you don’t go through this effort, your chosen loved one who is named executor will be doing so. A large part of the gift a trust represents to the family is that you spend the time and effort, so they don’t have to. It also means revising deeds so that the titled owner is the Trust. When someone dies, we meet with the successor trustee, and are focused on what the titles say, and who are designated beneficiaries on the contracts. That is where the rubber meets the road. What if things are missed. We create a short will, called a “Pour over Will” to catch loose ends which get missed in the funding process. The Will simply says “Put the probate assets into the trust” in legal mumbo jumbo. To use this type Will, you need to go to the probate court and open a probate filing. In Maryland, for estates of under $50,000, the process is relatively simple and is often opened and shut on the same day. A significant added bonus to a living trust is that is works very well to allow management of assets if you are no longer able to do so. But
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