Over-controlling daughter-in-law? Lazy son-in-law? These are just two reasons why parents may want to keep a daughter-in-law or son-in-law out of their estate. Other common reasons include: (i) the fact that the in-law spends too much money; (ii) the in-law has their own kids; (iii) the in-law will inherit from their own parents and grandparents; […]
This afternoon I was able to visit with a client when he came in to pick up his estate planning portfolio. He remarked that “we sure did have to get a lot of things cleaned up. Thank goodness we found out about that. We would have hated to leave that mess for our daughter.” What […]
In March, I moved law offices. As anyone who has ever moved knows, it takes a little bit of time to get unpacked and set up. Yet, after several weeks of late nights and working weekends, we are full-speed ahead at our new location at 2007 Independence Street in Cape Girardeau. Below are pictures of […]
This afternoon I have a young client coming in. In fact, she just celebrated her 18th birthday. So you may be asking yourself, why would a young woman need to come see an estate planning and elder law attorney shortly after her 18th birthday? The reason: because her deceased father didn’t do any estate planning, […]
On the door of my new law office, it says “Estate Planning & Elder Law”. It didn’t take long for someone to ask the question, “So what is Elder Law?” Elder Law means that we strive to serve a broad range of legal issues that affect seniors including business succession planning, estate planning, long-term care […]
Recently four guys from the area contacted me. Together they planned on purchasing over a dozen rental properties. Each brought something to the table: capital to finance the project, construction and rehab skills, accounting and paperwork, and experience with rental properties. The one with the experience was the one who insisted they set up a Limited […]
While trusts can be confusing at first to the lay person, trusts can be a valuable estate planning tool. Common types of trusts in Missouri include: • Revocable Living Trusts. Becoming increasingly popular for Missouri residents because it allows families to avoid the court-supervised Probate procedure at death and provides for a faster and less-costly […]
Been working with a New Madrid family that has worked hard over the last several decades and have accumulated an estate that is likely to cause there to be federal estate tax when they die. They were anxious to determine what needed to be done to reduce the ultimate federal estate tax burden. We had […]
Today I had a phone call from a potential client. She had just received a notice that her wages were going to be garnished. She was concerned that if her wages were garnished her family wouldn’t be able to pay their remaining bills to keep the lights on and food in the pantry. A co-worker […]
Recently I worked with a family who had a family farm just outside Cape Girardeau county. They told me they had three main estate planning concerns. First, they had two kids. They wanted to make sure that when they were gone, their son and daughter would be treated fairly. It was also important to them […]
