How to Protect Your
Last Will and Testament From Being Challenged
The Last Will and Testament is one of your most basic estate planning documents. If you die without a Last Will and Testament (intestate), crucial decisions about how your property will be distributed and who will be the guardian of your minor children will be decided by Commonwealth of Massachusetts intestacy laws.
Hiring a Caregiver: Should You Employ One Yourself or Go Through an Agency?
Most seniors prefer to stay at home as long as possible rather than move into a nursing home. For many families, this means eventually hiring a caregiver to look after an aging relative. There are two main ways to hire someone: directly or through a home health agency. Read more
The following case study is on the pitfalls of using online software forestate planning. This is a situation that our office had to navigate. The names of the family have been changed but it could happen to anyone.
Mary was unmarried. She had 2 children. One of her children predeceased her. Her deceased child, named Joseph, had a child of his own (Mary’s first grandchild), named Gilbert. Mary’s one surviving child, Kevin, also had a child (Mary’s second grandchild) named Samantha.
The following case study is on the pitfalls of using online software forestate planning. This is a situation that our office had to navigate. The names of the family have been changed but it could happen to anyone.
Mary was unmarried. She had 2 children. One of her children predeceased her. Her deceased child, named Joseph, had a child of his own (Mary’s first grandchild), named Gilbert. Mary’s one surviving child, Kevin, also had a child (Mary’s second grandchild) named Samantha.
Nowadays most of us do everything online: managing our banking, storing our photos, writing the next best-seller novel, and documenting the next great invention. Yet few of us have read the Terms of Service governing access to those Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Gmail, and other digital media sites. (Terms of Service are those pages of small print that you don’t read, quickly scroll through, and then agree to (“click here”), just so you can get to the substance of the digital site.) Access to that information by our families if we become disabled, sick, or die is most assuredly not guaranteed, unless they have the information that they need, (passwords, pin numbers, usernames, etc.) together with the legal documents in place that gives your named fiduciary the legal right to step in your shoes and act in your place, for your benefit.