Good Advice

That's basically what my lawyer told me. The will is to state very large, specific things, the memo is guidance for everyone as to where you would wish the various things to go. He said wills that have all this nitty, gritty stuff will always fail if challenged. The basis being that the perfect will is "All to wife/husband" - As Dawne said, everything fails anyway if the people who carry it out can't be trusted lol

I think it is because the pension benefit cannot be left to a person in their minority. This is the only way in which she can benefit from it indirectly. Once she turns 18, he can then change it to benefit her directly. Two years to go, but he is right to consider what would happen in that interval if anything happened, intestate is the greater problem.

Tonight is a nasty, stormy night. I hope he is not at sea rescuing someone, his is a job that could end in an early death and he is right to think about it.

Jenn Liace had some very interesting things to say about Re: Good Advice:

I know for IRAs (at least the types I'm at all familiar with), a trust CAN be a beneficiary (I set up at least one such per day, probably, at my current job).

Reason that I suggested the gift letter(s) over time has a couple of layers.

First is that you can give away up to two thousand a year to a person without costing them (there is nothing saying that they have to take it at that time).

Second, as I learned when my father died and there is no money to pay the bills, they start selling off the estate. If the will spells out too much as to who gets what, there can be a big battle. Also, in some states, if the will itemizes things to be given and one thing has to be sold to pay a bill, the whole estate could be forced up for sale.

This information in hand, if you give a person a notarized gift letter with a photo of the item (or a label saying who's it is). When it comes time to probate the estate, the person with the gift letter can claim the item outside of the will, thus in some cases avoiding very ugly probates.

Rusty,

When I was last in the tax business , you can give up to, but not exceeding, $10,000 per year to a child., without affecting the "death tax". Now if the child is married, you can give 10 grand to the spouse. If you are married, your spouse can give 10 grand to each.

I have not been wealthy enough to do this, but know many people who have. Of course this was in the days when estate tax came in with an estate valued at $600,000., and the tax rate was about 50%!!!

I am not familiar with a gift letter per se. Still don't have enough money,, but it is interesting!!

Gillian

I really miss the bus> Reason that I suggested the gift letter(s) over time has a couple of layers. >

The notarized letter of gift transfers ownership immediately, but physical transfer of the property need not follow. Makes sense to me---I would name my UFOs, and, at the rate I finish them off, no one would doubt that I was still working on it for the intended recipient, years later. Dawne

Snarf!!!

Oh, diet coke!

Will agree with you that I may be out of date with the amount that you can give per year. I had to deal with this about five years ago, and that was when I got the crash course from a few sources. Outcome was that I lost alot in the end, but in the long run am a bigger man for it. Overall, I guess the biggest point that can be made is to know your rights and have a good person do the work for you. Do not take a short cut and allow a family member or in law to do the work for you (even in it is free), conflicts of interest can be hard to prove and cause too many problems for hiers that you cared about.