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Wealth Planning Blog

We provide you with tips and wisdom to help individuals understand and create roadmaps for the distribution and preservation of assets and why wealth planning is so crucial.
 

Wealth Planning Blog
August 15, 2015

Back To The Basics Recap - Do I Need An Estate Plan?

With the close of the summer quickly approaching, kids going back to school, and life going back to “normal,” we thought it might be a good time to go back to the basics and discuss why EVERYONE needs an estate plan. While the reasons a person or family needs an estate plan are vast and varied, it is a FACT that everyone needs an estate plan - period. Now, don’t get us wrong, your estate plan may look nothing like the old Last Will and Testament you read of your grandmothers, but that is because today estate planning can be specifically tailored to your goals, the specific assets you need to plan for, and the circumstances surrounding your world.

Wealth Planning Blog
July 31, 2014

Charitable, Religious and Legacy Bequests

As we progress throughout our lives, we seek meaning in our family, social, religious and work relationships. “The future must be seen in terms of what a person can do to contribute something, to make something better, to make it go where he believes with all his being it ought to go.” - Frederick R. Kappel. When we do succeed in finding religious, charitable or social meaning in our lives, one avenue of honoring this can be to make a financial gift to an organization or institution which develops, reflects, or embodies this meaning in our lives.

Wealth Planning Blog
July 24, 2014

Avoiding The Perils of Probate

Whether you are an expert in probate and have dealt with it on multiple occasions or a rookie, we can all agree on one thing: probate kind of sucks and should be and can be avoided. Let’s start with the basics: What is probate? Probate is a Court-guided process whereby a deceased individual’s financial affairs are wrapped up and the Court determines who the proper beneficiaries are of the deceased individual’s estate. The words “court-guided process” should automatically lead you to the accurate assumption that probate can be expensive both in time and money.

Wealth Planning Blog
June 30, 2014

Under Missouri Law, Corporate Trustees are Easily Ousted

Historically, Missouri trust law prevented beneficiaries of a trust from replacing a trustee absent a showing that the trustee had committed a breach of trust. This law tended to insulate investors administering trusts from competition. Even if beneficiaries were dissatisfied with a corporate trustee who obtained average returns and charged high fees, they could not replace the trustee without proving misconduct. However, Missouri’s trust law has expanded beneficiaries’ power to remove trustees, so Missouri corporate trustees may soon face a more competitive environment.

Wealth Planning Blog
June 14, 2014

Estate Planning for the Brady Bunch

As if estate planning didn't already seem complicated enough, blended families now make up a growing portion of our demographic and pose many additional considerations when trying to plan for the transition of their estate. When I started my practice as a wealth planning attorney, I would say about two out of ten families that I met with for estate planning or administration purposes were what we call "blended families" - families where at least one person brought children from a prior marriage.