San Antonio, TX Estate Planning

$788,000 Estate with No Heir to Claim It

 

Kathleen Hilda Ryan, a woman with Mullingar roots, died in Greenwich in the UK in October 2013, at 83 years of age. She left no will, but she did leave behind a small fortune of $788,000 (£500,000). Since then, no relatives have stepped forward to claim the inheritance.

Kathleen had no children of her own and no living siblings.

In fact, as far as anyone knows, she had no living relatives at all. However, it is believed that her aunt, Lizzie, emigrated from Ireland to New York at some point.

Thus, the search is on for what happened to Lizzie and whether she had any children.

If any of Lizzie's children are found, then they would inherit the estate. If no one is found in 30 years, then the estate will become the property of the British Crown.

Many people have submitted claims to being the descendants of Lizzie, but thus far no one has been able to prove it.

Irish Central reported the story in an article titled "Is your ancestor Lizzie Ryan from Westmeath? You could inherit $788,000."

In the United States, the law is basically the same with one big exception. If no relative is found the estate does not go to the British Crown, but rather it passes to the state in which the estate property is located.

Thus, unless you want your estate to become the property of state government, it is very important that you have some kind of estate plan, especially if you do not have any close relatives who can be easily found.

Of course, if you are descended from a Lizzie Ryan who emigrated from Ireland to New York in the mid-1900s, you might want to stake a claim to the estate of Kathleen Hilda Ryan while you can.

It's never too early to protect you and your heirs. Click here to read more about what is involved with setting up your estate plan.

Reference: Irish Central (May 16, 2015) "Is your ancestor Lizzie Ryan from Westmeath? You could inherit $788,000."

Beware of Fake Inheritance Scams

A 54-year-old O’Fallon, Missouri man was sentenced Friday for scamming lenders by telling them he was the beneficiary of a multi-million dollar inheritance, U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan said.

Fox 2 Now reported the story in an article titled "O'Fallon man sentenced for bogus inheritance tale."

A Missouri man, Dana Jefferson, was recently convicted of scamming lenders out of $740,000. He would tell the lenders that his father had left him a large inheritance that he did not currently have access to and promise to repay the loans when he received the inherited money.

Instead, he spent the money by going on cruises and getting plastic surgery.

The details of his story often changed.

He told different lenders he inherited different amounts. Jefferson even used several aliases during his scheme.

One of the important details that has been left out of the story is who the lenders were.

It would be interesting and enlightening to know if these were sophisticated, professional lenders or not. However, a lesson to be learned is that you should never lend someone money based on an inheritance without first getting reliable evidence that the inheritance exists.

It’s important to have your estate documents reviewed by a professional with your best interest in mind. Contact us today to set up an appointment to review your current plan.

Reference: Fox 2 Now (May 8, 2015) "O'Fallon man sentenced for bogus inheritance tale."

Inheritance Scam with a Twist

A Brooklyn woman scammed $300,000 from her friends by telling them she had inherited a boatload of cash but needed their dough to pay off the estate’s taxes and liens, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Have you heard of the standard inheritance scam? A scammer pretends to be an attorney or estate agent. They tell a potential victim that the victim has inherited a large fortune from an estranged or long lost relative. However, before the victim can get the inheritance, the scammer claims that the victim must cough up large sums of money to pay off taxes or other debts that the estate holds. 

Plot twist! A woman in Brooklyn is alleged to have turned this standard inheritance scam around. 

She forged bank documents to make it look like she had received an inheritance for $13 million in cash. She then went to her friends and convinced some of them that to get the cash she needed money to pay the estate's taxes and debts. 

She is alleged to have conned $300,000 from up to ten people. 

The New York Post has more on the story in a recent article titled "Woman busted in $300K inheritance scam: DA."

Avoiding inheritance scams is easy. 

If someone you do not know asks for money concerning an inheritance, especially if it seems too good to be true, consult with an estate attorney before spending any money. 

If the person objects to you receiving the advice of an attorney, run away! 

No legitimate estate administrator would object to an attorney being consulted. 

In this particular case, the attorney would have told the victims that any taxes or other debts could have been paid out of the cash in the estate, if in fact the inheritance were real.

Reference: New York Post (April 14, 2015) "Woman busted in $300K inheritance scam: DA."

Your Options Did You Inherit a Roth IRA? Get to Know

In order to make sound financial decisions, you must have a good understanding of the rules.  Receiving an inheritance is one of those situations you may have to make decisions that could impact your future finances. If you inherit a Roth IRA, the options you have are similar to that of a traditional IRA, however, there are some differences in the rules.

Before you can decide what to do with an inherited Roth IRA, you need to know what your options are.

Recently, the Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog published an article titled "Options for Inherited Roth IRAs."

Here is a list of the options identified in that article:

• Disinherit the IRA.
• Take a lump sum distribution.
• Roll it into another inherited Roth IRA.
• Roll the funds into your own Roth IRA. This last one is available only if you inherited the Roth IRA from a spouse.

Those are your options and you will want to read the original article for more details.

Of course, other rules exist about when you can take distributions. This, however, should give you a general idea so that you can start deciding what you might want to do.

Take no action until you consult an experienced estate planning attorney regarding how these options impact your unique circumstances. For professional legal guidance contact us today to set up a free initial consultation.

Reference: Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (March 15, 2015) "Options for Inherited Roth IRAs."

Will Millennials Invest Inheritances Wisely? Wall Street Has Concerns

Source: BloombergBusiness

It seems that the millennials are going to inherit a lot more from their baby boomer parents than just some tie-dyes, Steely Dan LPs, and Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic books. To the tune of $30 trillion, according to Federated. But will millennials invest that wealth? Wall Street is worried, so they are taking action by creating cartoon-like ads to draw millennials in.

Millennials. What a bunch of new-age hippies, am I right? Well, maybe we shouldn’t categorize them so quickly. Much has been written about the millennial generation, those people born between 1980 and 2000. But besides their work ethic, it’s wise to consider how their thought process could impact the market.

One thing that some believe is different about millennials is that they do not just get financial advice from professionals. They also get advice from friends, social media and online gurus.

This is seen as a problem for Wall Street firms who are in the business of selling financial advice and getting people to use their services to invest. Since estimates speculate that millennials will inherit $30 Trillion from their parents and grandparents, it is paramount for Wall Street to attract the attention of these young heirs.

As Bloomberg reports in an article titled "Wall Street Has Its Eyes on Millennials $30 Trillion Inheritance," Wall Street has taken an unusual strategy to attract the attention of millennials, using animation and cartoon like graphics.

Click over to read the original article and see some examples of the cartoon graphics Wall Street firms are using.

One takeaway: if you are planning on leaving a millennial a large inheritance, it might be a good idea to have an estate plan that takes the choice of investing away from them and giving it to a professional.

A trust, for example, could be used instead of leaving the inheritance outright with a professional trustee to help protect the inheritance from and for your millennial loved ones.

If Wall Street is concerned that millennials will not invest their inheritance prudently, perhaps it would be wise for you to be concerned as well.

Reference: Bloomberg (March 3, 2015) "Wall Street Has Its Eyes on Millennials $30 Trillion Inheritance"

Social Media Post Led Robbers to Steal Inheritance

Authorities said the men said during the robbery that they had seen recent social media postings from a resident that he had just inherited some expensive jewelry.

Social Media safety lesson: don’t post about your inheritance!

Police in Pennsylvania say that a 19-year-old made social media posts about some expensive jewelry he had recently inherited. Not a good idea, so it turns out.

This public posting led to a home invasion.

One morning armed, masked men invaded the poster's home and made reference to the social media posts during the robbery.

Penn Live has more on the story in an article titled "Pa. home robbed after man posts on social media about inheritance."

This story highlights why most estate planning attorneys advise their clients to keep their estate plans private. Other people do not need to know what someone else will or has inherited. Period.

Accordingly, if the wrong people learn about an estate plan or an inheritance, then they know whom to target for a robbery or other criminal activity.

For help on how to keep your estate plan or inheritance private, visit an experienced estate planning attorney.

Reference: Penn Live (February 8, 2015) "Pa. home robbed after man posts on social media about inheritance."

How to Manage Unequal Inheritances

Of course, in most families, the split is an equal one, giving adult siblings no reason to quibble over the disposition of cash and other assets. Yet some parents decide to single out one or more children for a bigger, smaller or differently structured inheritance. Even if the reasoning is valid — perhaps one child has special needs, or offered the parents much more care than other siblings did — the resulting powder keg can put financial advisors in a tricky position.

Will you split your estate equally between your children? If not, how will you handle the potential emotions that could arise from unequal inheritances?

For most people the idea that parents would want to leave more of an estate to one child than another conjures up the idea that the parents do not love one child as much as the other. Estate planning attorneys, however, know that is rarely the case.

There are many valid reasons why parents would leave more to one child than another.

In some cases, the parents have given one child more money already to help the child out when needed. In other cases, one of the children has special needs and needs more money to take care of him or herself. Another common reason is that one child might have a serious drug addiction and access to more money could just make the addiction worse.

In all of these cases, the problem parents have is how to leave unequal inheritances without destroying any familial bonds between the children.

Financial Planning, in an article titled "Family Drama: 'But She Got More!," provides pointers parents should consider to minimize the chances of squabbling children.

One of their best suggestions is to use a trust instead of a will.

Because trusts are private documents that do not have to go through probate, it is much more difficult to challenge them. That makes it difficult for any siblings with hurt feelings to use the court system to fight it out in public.

If you have a good reason for leaving unequal inheritances to your children, talk to your estate planning attorney about the best way to do so. Trusts are just one way, but your attorney likely will have other options and suggestions for you.

Reference: Financial Planning (October 27, 2014) "Family Drama: 'But She Got More!"

Suggested Key Words: Estate Planning, Unequal Inheritances

The Basics of Estate Planning

Are you childfree? Are you planning with an elder parent? Do any of your potential beneficiaries have special needs that must be taken into consideration? Are any of your beneficiaries minors? The first step of planning is to take a moment to consider what makes your situation unique.

Although estate planning has many aspects, it's good to start with the fundamentals.

A recent NASDAQ.com article, titled "Estate Planning Guide 101: A Basic Guide To Establishing Your Estate," gives some basic estate planning instructions that can help get you started.

Outline Your Estate. It is important to outline your current net worth. Forbes describes this equation as:

Net Worth = Assets – Liabilities

 

The original article explains that assets include information detailed in bank statements, investment statements (such as from mutual fund accounts and retirement plans), trust assets and business interests. Also, include personal property and real estate. Liabilities include debts reflected on credit cards, mortgages, tax bills, student loan statements, business loans, and other indebtedness.  Once you account for your living expenses, you can then see what can be passed to your beneficiaries, and whether you should gift during your life.

Name Your Beneficiaries, Divide the Assets. Next you need to decide who will be the recipients of your estate. This can be very personal and needs to be handled with care, as it is this point in the planning process when you need to think about how much of your estate will go to family and how much will go to charity.

Name Your Trustee. Naming your trustee needs to be handled with the same amount of care that you used when divvying up your assets. Selecting the person to be in charge of your affairs is no small decision, the original article cautions. Naming your trustee takes a significant level of trust, responsibility, and foresight.

Hire a Lawyer. As you work through theprocess, engage a qualified estate planning attorney.  Do not leave planning your will or estate for later. Do It Now!  Take the time to speak to your estate planning attorney and map out the details of your legacy now.

Reference: NASDAQ.com (October 15, 2014) "Estate Planning Guide 101: A Basic Guide To Establishing Your Estate"

You Just Inherited Some Money - Now What?

The biggest mistake people make when they inherit a chunk of money is not thinking it through, said Meg Green, a certified financial planner and CEO of Meg Green and Associates in Miami. “People who don’t have means often squander the money on things they have been dying to have all these years, and then it’s gone.”

You just received a large inheritance from a family member and you have no clue what to do with it. Spend it? Invest it? Decisions, decisions. It's sort of like winning the lottery, yet you know how those stories have turned out in the past. You don't want to be a "when wealth goes bad" statistic.

There is a well known phenomenon concerning lottery winners. A few years after they win the big jackpot, they have usually spent all their winnings and are no better off financially than they were before they won. This is because people who have never had a lot of money do not have the experience or knowledge about how to handle it when they receive a lot of it at once. People who inherit a lot of wealth often go through the same process.

The Miami Herald recently published some advice about what to do with an inheritance in an article titled "Inherit? Invest." The article presents a long list of advice about what to do with a sudden inheritance. However, the advice can be boiled down to essentially this: do not spend all the money right away, seek good advice and invest the money wisely. Of course the problem for many people is they do not know where to go for good financial advice. People who are not used to dealing with financial advisors do not necessarily have the experience to tell the good advisors from the bad.

If you have inherited a lot of money, then the good news is that you are most likely already in contact with someone who can assist you and give you some advice about how to preserve your inheritance. That someone is your estate planning attorney. Ask your attorney to recommend advisors and about setting up legal entities to protect your new assets.

Reference: Miami Herald (August 22, 2014) "Inherit? Invest"

Keep Your Heirs from Being Spoiled

One of the perennial issues high-net worth families worry about is how they can pass their wealth to the next generation without spoiling their kids or destroying their drive or ambition.

If you are afraid your heirs may become spoiled by their inheritances, your fear is justified. Many people are apprehensive when deciding how to pass down their estate for this very reason.

When people suddenly receive a lot of wealth, one of their first instincts is to use it to buy all of the things they want but previously could not afford. While it might be okay to indulge in one or two purchases, the spending rarely stops there. Instead, it often continues until the money is all gone. Other people will use the money so they no longer have to work again. They will prefer to live off the inheritance.

The Globe and Mailrecently published an article about what you can do to make sure your children are not spoiled by an inheritance. The article, titled "Three ways to pass your wealth to your children without spoiling them," includes these ideas:

• Teach Them Values - Tell your children how you earned the money and how hard you had to work for it. Instill the value of hard work in your children.
• Delay the Transfer - Plan your estate so your children inherit the bulk of the assets when they are old enough to be established in their own careers.
• Think Outside the Box - There might be unusual strategies you can employ to make sure your children do not get spoiled. The article mentions one plan that puts money in a trust and gives it to the children as a dollar-for-dollar matching of their own salary.

Inheritance does not have to spoil your children. If that is a concern, then talk to your estate planning attorney about how you can set up your estate to minimize the risk. You might be surprised about the many options your attorney can provide.

Reference: Globe and Mail (August 22, 2014) "Three ways to pass your wealth to your children without spoiling them"