Blog of The Law Offices of Daniel Timins
What is a Fair Executor Commission?
When we used to go out to dinner with my grandfather, he would always put some of his food on my plate. It wasn’t that it was cold or not tasty (though his love affair with tripe was engaged in by him and him alone), the thing was that it wasn’t what I had expected, the food that was placed on my plate was not always the part I would have preferred, and it always got entangled with my own eating affairs (I.e. the mash potatoes). Eating other people’s leftovers is often an unsavory task, but it can be about 1 gazillion times more palatable than having to deal with another person’s estate. Sometimes the deceased person was a hoarder
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Is There Any Reason NOT to Do a Medicaid Trust in New York?!?!
Many aging individuals appreciate how much work they have done through their lives, how much risk they took, and how they were somehow able to save up enough money to live in retirement for over 20 years. Then, without warning, they have a stroke, or a fall, or are diagnosed with dementia, and it becomes clear to them that their aging health issues can erase their entire net worth in a mere few years. The family then finds out that receiving home care Medicaid is pretty easy, but to protect family assets from Medicaid nursing home care benefits requires you to be indigent for at least 5 years. And (unfortunately by predictably) the family home was never transferred or properly
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The Many Risks of “Deathbed” Estate Planning
I can appreciate that planning for your own demise years before your death is not as exciting as planning your next K-Pop karaoke face-off (or any other activity imaginable for that matter). Yet many people fear death so much during their healthy and convalescing periods that they take no estate planning actions whatsoever in the hopes that ignoring this 12,000 pound gorilla will make it just go away. It doesn’t, so many estate planners are – frankly too often – called in during a new client’s final living days to draft their Will, create and fund trusts, or update beneficiary designation forms. These last-ditch “Deathbed” Will signings do not achieve their desired end result an inordinately-high amount of the time
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Why Jeffrey Epstein’s Trust Only Adds to the Murder Conspiracy
While America’s criminal justice system does not judge people to be guilty until proven guilty (even though it has no compunction with adjudicating innocent people as being guilty), Jeffrey Epstein sure does look like a bad, bad dude. The “Pimp of the Rich and Famous” would have been charged with human trafficking, statutory rape, prostitution, and likely many more demented crimes which thinking of would cause most decent people to throw up in their mouth a little bit. His trial and any plea bargain could have been an enormous bombshell that would have ruined at least a few people with HUGE shoes to fill. It was in this context that Jeffrey Epstein somehow hung himself from a five-foot high bunkbed
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PSS Webinar – 10 Mistakes in Wills
From time to time, Daniel Timins has donated his time and knowledge to PSS (Presbyterian Senior Services) to give advice and knowledge to those in need. Mr. Timins has set-up a series of Webinars to give them an understanding of Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning. Below you will find the second videos Dan has put together for PSS on “Top 10 Mistakes in Wills”. About PSS PSS was founded in 1962 as Presbyterian Senior Services by volunteers to serve older members of their church community. Today, PSS is an innovative, multi-service nonprofit 501(c)(3) agency whose mission is to strengthen the capacity of older New Yorkers, their families, and communities to thrive. To learn more about PSS visit: www.pssusa.org
PSS – Estate Planning Webinar: Wills, Trusts, and Estates
From time to time, Daniel Timins has donated his time and knowledge to PSS (Presbyterian Senior Services) to give advice and knowledge to those in need. Mr. Timins has set-up a series of Webinars to give them an understanding of Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning. Below you will find one of the first videos Dan has put together for PSS. About PSS PSS was founded in 1962 as Presbyterian Senior Services by volunteers to serve older members of their church community. Today, PSS is an innovative, multi-service nonprofit 501(c)(3) agency whose mission is to strengthen the capacity of older New Yorkers, their families, and communities to thrive. To learn more about PSS visit: www.pssusa.org
Damian Hurley: Why Minimizing Estate Taxes is Not Always a Good Thing
For decades estate attorneys have been driven by a prime directive, a primary motivating cause that overcomes all other client desires: Minimizing estate taxes. I believe this is a huge mistake, and a recent court decision highlighted by a stern millionaire patriarch, celebrities, a free-living playboy, and an irrevocable trust shows us why. Today it takes a decent amount of money ($11.4 million or more) to face a federal estate tax when you die, and there are also certain irrevocable trusts, including GRATs and GRUTs, that further minimize or eliminate estate taxes. So, for many of us this article is not relevant, but for those who it is, it should come as no surprise that estate attorneys have traditionally focused
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