New Edition!

Estate Planning Basics

Estate planning, in plain English

Learn the fundamentals of estate planning, including:

  • how wills work and why you need one
  • how you can provide care and protection for your children
  • what probate is and how you can avoid it

 

  • Product Details
  • Get the need-to-know basics about wills, trusts, avoiding probate, and planning for incapacity with Estate Planning Basics. This book lays out your options in plain English, guiding you to the right estate plan for you and your family.

    Learn how to:

    • make a will or living trust
    • name a guardian for your children
    • avoid probate
    • choose an executor
    • use durable powers of attorney, and
    • prepare a health care directive.

    The 12th edition is completely updated to reflect the latest information about estate planning.

    “One of the simplest and best overviews of the estate planning process.”—Wall Street Journal

    “Will be appreciated by those with modest estates who want a quick overview.”—Library Journal

     

    ISBN
    9781413331493
    Number of Pages
    240
  • About the Author
  • Table of Contents
  • Your Estate Planning Legal Companion

    1. A First Look at Estate Planning

    • Evaluating Your Personal Situation
    • Your Property
    • Your Beneficiaries
    • Providing for Young Children
    • Planning for Incapacity
    • Transferring Your Property After You Die
    • Estate Taxes
    • Making Changes
    • More Estate Planning Resources From Nolo

    2. Your Beneficiaries

    • Direct Beneficiaries
    • Alternate Beneficiaries
    • Beneficiary Complexities
    • Disinheritance
    • Talking It Over

    3. Children

    • Naming Someone to Care for Young Children
    • Naming Someone to Manage Your Child’s Property
    • Choosing How Your Children’s Property Should Be Managed
    • Naming Children as Beneficiaries of Life Insurance
    • Tax-Saving Accounts
    • Leaving Property to Adult Children
    • Leaving Property to Other People’s Children

    4. Planning for Incapacity: Medical Care and Finances

    • Medical Decisions
    • Financial Decisions

    5. Wills

    • Will Requirements
    • Types of Wills
    • Probate
    • Using a Will in Your Estate Planning
    • Preparing Your Will
    • Challenges to Your Will

    6. Living Trusts

    • How a Living Trust Works
    • Do You Need a Living Trust?
    • Living Trusts and Taxes
    • Living Trusts and Young Children
    • Shared Living Trusts for Couples
    • Making Key Decisions About Your Living Trust
    • Preparing Your Living Trust Documents

    7. Other Ways to Avoid Probate

    • Pay-on-Death Bank Accounts
    • Transfer on Death Accounts for Securities
    • Transfer on Death Car Registration
    • Transfer on Death Deeds for Real Estate
    • Joint Tenancy
    • Tenancy by the Entirety
    • Community Property With Right of Survivorship
    • Community Property Agreements
    • Simplified Probate Proceedings
    • Life Insurance
    • Gifts

    8. Retirement Plans as Estate Planning Devices

    • Individual Retirement Programs
    • Pensions
    • Choosing Beneficiaries for Individual Retirement Programs
    • Retirement Plans and Taxes

    9. Estate Tax

    • Federal Estate Tax Exemptions
    • State Estate and Inheritance Tax
    • Gift Tax
    • The Federal Income-Tax Basis of Inherited Property

    10. Reducing Federal Estate Taxes

    • Making Gifts During Life
    • Disclaimer Trusts
    • Tax-Saving Irrevocable Trusts
    • Disclaiming Gifts

    11. Property Control Trusts

    • Marital Property Control Trusts for Second or Subsequent Marriages
    • Special Needs Trusts for People With Disabilities
    • Education Trusts
    • Spendthrift Trusts
    • Flexible Trusts

    12. Lawyers

    • Will You Need a Lawyer?
    • Working With a Lawyer
    • Doing Your Own Research

    13. Finalizing Your Estate Plan

    • Storing Your Documents
    • Sharing Your Documents
    • Revising Your Documents

    Appendix: Some Sample Estate Plans

    • Leslie and Martin: A Couple in Their Late 50s
    • Michelle: A Single Mother in Her 40s
    • Randy and Lisa: A Prosperous Older Couple
    • Gail and Nick: A Young Married Couple
    • Richard: A Single Man
    • Clemencia and Pierre: A Couple in Their Second Marriage

    Index

  • Sample Chapter
  • Chapter 1

    A First Look at Estate Planning

    Who needs to bother with estate planning? Here’s the short answer:

    • anyone who owns property that matters to them
    • anyone concerned with possible incapacity, and
    • anyone with a minor child (younger than 18).

    Estate planning isn’t only for the rich, nor are there minimum property requirements, such as owning a home. Anything you care about—from artworks to gold earrings to items with little or no market value, such as the old family rocking chair or loved photographs—is significant enough to warrant at least basic estate planning.

    First, ask yourself whether you own any property that you want to go to a specific person or organization when you die. If the answer is yes, you need to create a plan to make sure your desires will be carried out.

    Second, consider whether you care about who would make medical or financial decisions for you if you couldn’t make them yourself. If you do, that’s another reason to plan ahead. The wise way to handle these possibilities is to create binding legal documents that set out your wishes and appoint a person of your choice to make decisions for you if you can’t.

    Example: Tracy doesn’t think she has reason to worry about estate planning because she and her partner live a simple life and don’t own much. However, Tracy is a carpenter, and her tools are worth more than $20,000. She also has a record collection that’s not worth much but is meaningful to her. Tracy wants the tools and the records to go to her partner if she dies. She knows that her partner knows her wishes. But after looking into it, she learns that if she dies without making a legal plan for her property, state law would give everything she owns to her family, from whom she is estranged. Further, she learns that if she were to have an accident and become unable to manage her own finances or medical care, her partner would have no legal right to act on her behalf. So, to make her intentions crystal clear (and legal), she prepares:

    • a simple will (that gives all of her property to her partner)
    • a financial power of attorney (that gives her partner power over her finances, if needed), and
    • a health care directive (that states her wishes for health care and gives her partner the power to make health care decisions on her behalf, if needed).

    After she makes and finalizes her plan, she feels great relief knowing that her wishes are clear and legally documented.

    Third, if you have a minor child, or children, you automatically have estate planning concerns. Who will raise your child if you can’t? More precisely, if you and the child’s other parent—if there is one—die before your child is legally an adult, who will be the adult responsible for caring for the child? Legally, there are two different adult roles involved. The first is raising and nurturing the child—having legal custody, and making day-to-day personal decisions on the child’s behalf. The second adult role is managing any property owned by, or left for the use of, the child. By law, minors can’t control any significant amount of property they own. Commonly, parents name one adult to serve in both capacities.

    EXAMPLE: Iman and Joe are married and have two young children, aged one and three. They own an inexpensive car, personal and household belongings, and two life insurance policies for $200,000, one on each of their lives. If one of them dies, the other one will carry on, aided by the life insurance. But like many parents, the couple worries about what will happen if they die together. They discuss who should raise their children and manage the insurance money if they both die. They are pleased and relieved to agree that their wisest choice is Joe’s sister Susan, who loves their kids and is securely married with one child of her own. Iman and Joe discuss the matter with Susan, who agrees to serve as guardian if the need arises.

    But I Don’t Want To

    Many people put off their estate planning. There are many reasons for this procrastination: a busy life, a mistrust of lawyers, a belief that it’s not critical for their circumstances, and so on. But most commonly, people put off estate planning because they just don’t want to think about it. This avoidance makes sense because it is incredibly uncomfortable and sad to contemplate dying and how it will affect our loved ones.

    But logic needs to win out here. Dying or getting really sick before you’ve made a plan could be a huge burden on your loved ones. At the risk of making you even more uncomfortable, here is a list of problems you could leave behind.

    If you become incapacitated without a plan:

    • A court will decide who would manage your finances.
    • State law will determine who would make medical decisions on your behalf.
    • Those who do make those medical decisions would have to do so without knowing what you would want—and this could spark discord among those who care about you.

    If you die without a plan:

    • A probate court will distribute your property according to state law.
    • Probate could be costly, time-consuming, and stressful.
    • If you have young children and they don’t have another legal parent, a judge will decide who will care for them.

    You can avoid these potential problems with just a few simple legal documents. So, if you can overcome the discomfort, it’s time to make an estate plan. This book will help you get started.

    RESOURCE
    Learn about your state’s intestate succession laws. If you die withouta will, your state’s “intestate succession” laws will determine how your property will be distributed. You learn about your state’s intestate succession laws on Nolo.com at www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/intestate-succession.

    Evaluating Your Personal Situation

    The first step in creating a sound estate plan is to look realistically at your personal situation. Begin by taking stock of what property you own, who your beneficiaries will be, who will care for minor children, and what complications you foresee.

    Some situations have built-in family-specific complexities. For example, in a second or subsequent marriage, a couple might have “yours, mine, and our” kids as well as “yours, mine, and our” property. Unmarried people might also have specific concerns to address because state law makes assumptions about who should get their property and who should be their executor, and often those aren’t the people the unmarried person would have picked.

    Everyone’s situation is unique to some degree. The particular mix of property you own, the structure of your family (biological or chosen), and the dynamics of your relationships make your situation different from everyone else’s. So, it’s important to take a good look at what you have and what you need.

    Your Property

    At the heart of your estate plan will be decisions about who will inherit your property. Deciding how to divide your property might be easy—or not. Either way, forming a list (even a mental list) of what you own is an important first step.

    Knowing What You Own

    Many people, especially those doing basic estate planning, face no problem knowing what property they own. Often the major asset is a house; then there’s a car, some savings, perhaps stocks or other investments, and personal or household possessions, like jewelry or art. There might be other assets, such as any funds remaining in retirement accounts like an IRA or a 401(k) plan, where beneficiaries are named as part of the account. (Using retirement plans as estate planning devices is discussed in Chapter 8.)

    Knowing what you own can be especially complicated for married people, because state laws determine how much of your property you legally own with your spouse and how much you must leave your spouse when you die.

    In the great majority of states, called “common law” states, your spouse has a legal right to inherit part of your property. In these states, laws protect a surviving spouse from being completely disinherited by the other spouse. If a spouse isn’t left at least the amount required by state statute— usually one-half of the deceased spouse’s property—the surviving spouse can claim that amount, no matter what the deceased spouse’s estate plan provided. In almost all common law states, a spouse can waive statutory inheritance rights. This can be done in a prenuptial agreement, or at any later time.

    Common Law and Community Property States
    Common law states are all states that aren’t community property states. Community property states are Arizona, California*, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington*, and Wisconsin.
    * Registered domestic partners are also covered by community property laws.
    Alaska, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Tennessee allow a married couple to make a written agreement stating that they wish certain property to be treated as community property. (See a lawyer if you want to make this kind of agreement.)

    In contrast, “community property” states have no inheritance requirements for spouses. Instead, spouses are protected by the rule that each spouse owns one-half of all property acquired by either spouse during marriage. There are, of course, some exceptions. For example, property owned by one spouse before marriage and kept separate during the marriage remains the separate property of that spouse, as does property inherited by or gifted to one spouse.

    SEE AN EXPERT
    Planning to leave your spouse less than half. If you live in a commonlaw state, and you want to leave your spouse less than one-half of your property, see a lawyer for advice.

    Making a List

    Do you need to make a physical itemized list? Not necessarily. Indeed, most people don’t need to bother with it, especially if you plan to leave all or most of your property to one or more people. However, some people find it helpful.

    Inventorying your property can be particularly desirable if:

    • You plan to leave many items of property to many different beneficiaries—for example, a large collection of jazz records to be distributed among dozens of fellow aficionados.
    • You aren’t sure what you actually own, perhaps because of shared business ownership, or because you’re not certain about your state’s rules governing marital property for estate planning purposes.
    • You want to pin down what you own so you can estimate your net worth to see if your estate is likely to owe state or federal estate tax. But even here, a rough estimate of total value is all you need, and you probably won’t have to itemize meticulously to make that estimate.

    If you do want or need to make a list, you can use the chart “Types of Property You Might Own,” below, to spark your memory about what to include.

    Types of Property You Might Own

    Animals
    Antiques
    Appliances
    Art
    Books
    Business interests
     Corporation
     Limited partnership LLC
     Sole proprietorship
     Partnership
     Business property*
    Cameras and photo equipment
    Cash accounts
     Certificates of deposit
     Checking
     Money market funds
     Savings
    Cell phones
    China, crystal, and silver

    Coins and stamps
    Collectibles
    Computers, tablets, and e-readers
    Copyrights, patents, and trademarks
    Electronic equipment
    Furniture
    Furs
    Jewelry
    Music collections (digital, vinyl, CD, or other)
    Photos (digital or printed)
    Precious metals
    Real estate
     Agricultural land
     Boat/marina dock space
     Co-ops
     Condos
     Duplexes
     Houses
     Mobile homes
     Rental property
     Timeshares
     Undeveloped land
     Vacation houses

    Retirement accounts
    Royalties
    Securities
     Bonds
     Commodities
     Mutual funds
     Stocks
     U.S. bills, notes, and bonds
    Tools
    Vehicles
     Bicycles
     Boats
     Cars
     Motorcycles
     Motor homes/RVs
     Planes

    * If you own a sole proprietorship

    TIP
    Don’t forget your digital assets. When thinking about what should happen to your property when you die, consider what will happen to the things you keep online—blogs, email accounts, photos, social networking identities, and so on. You won’t be able to use your will or trust to leave most of these things to others, but you can leave detailed instructions for your executor describing what you’d like done with them. It’s also a good idea to securely leave a list of your user names and passwords, so that your executor won’t have any trouble accessing your accounts. You can learn more about planning for your digital assets at www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/digital-assets.

    Your Beneficiaries

    Your beneficiaries are the people and organizations to which you leave your property. Distribution plans can range from the simple, such as leaving everything to your spouse, to far more complex arrangements, such as using trusts to leave property to many family members over generations while also leaving property to friends and organizations at your death.

    Most people find that they need a fairly simple plan—one that makes their choices clear and leaves their property outright, with no strings or controls attached. (One exception can be property left to minors or young adults. See “Choosing How Your Children’s Property Should Be Managed” in Chapter 3.)

    EXAMPLE 1: Francine and Phillip, a married couple, want to leave everything to each other. When the second spouse dies, all the property will be divided equally among their three children.

    EXAMPLE 2: Lily has a son, aged nine, and a modest estate. She wants to leave most of her property to her son (in a trust until he’s 30), and the remainder to her friends Kelly and Gretchen.

    EXAMPLE 3: Angela has a substantial estate and 2 children, aged 45 and 36. She wants to leave the bulk of her property equally to them, plus gifts of specific heirlooms to her sister and niece, and some cash to The Nature Society.

    Those in subsequent marriages might face more difficult beneficiary decisions, and if one or both spouses have children from a prior marriage, conflicting desires can arise. Spouses might feel torn between leaving property to children from a prior marriage and aiding the current spouse, along with any children from the new marriage.

    EXAMPLE: Russell and Katy marry in their 50s, a second marriage for both of them. Russell has 2 children, aged 25 and 28. Katy has a daughter, who just turned 30. Russell’s net worth is about $370,000; Katy’s is about $560,000. They purchase a house together. Each contributes $150,000 for the down payment. Katy will pay roughly two-thirds of the mortgage payments and house expenses, because she earns considerably more than Russell.

     Both spouses feel strongly that when one spouse dies, the other should be able to continue to live in the house. But they also want their individual shares of the house to go to their own children after they both die. Neither wants to create the possibility that the child or children of the spouse who lives the longest could somehow end up owning the entire house. The couple must agree on how the house will be divided when both die, including how Katy’s extra contribution for payments and expenses will be apportioned. Also, they must devise a legal mechanism to accomplish their goals.

    The usual legal device for handling this kind of second-marriage issue is a marital trust that allows each person to provide for their spouse while also leaving property to their children. For details about this type of trust, see Chapter 11.

    Do you need to make a list of beneficiaries? Again, not necessarily. If you plan to involve a small group of people—say, your spouse and children—then a list won’t do much for you. However, if your situation is more complex, making a list—or even sketching out the family tree— might be helpful.

    Providing for Young Children

    Parents raising young children are usually quite clear that their major estate planning concern is providing for the minors if the parents suddenly die. (A minor is any child younger than age 18.) “Providing” means deciding:

    • who will raise the child, and
    • who will manage any money or property that the child legally owns.

    Parents of young children might make plans to have sufficient property to leave the child, such as buying term life insurance.

    If there are two parents and one dies, the surviving parent will normally take custody of the child. On the other hand, if there is no other parent involved, or to prepare for the possibility of the death of both parents, parents can use a will to nominate a “personal guardian” to care for the child. This nomination isn’t binding on a court, but the judge will routinely confirm the expressed desires of the deceased parent.

    EXAMPLE: Myron and Kim are divorced but manage to cooperate without viciousness in raising their young son Lawrence. Each understands that if one dies before Lawrence turns 18, the other parent will have custody. Myron dies and Kim now has sole custody. In her will, she nominates her sister Polly to serve as Lawrence’s guardian if she dies.

    It’s very difficult to prevent a parent who has been involved in raising a child from gaining legal custody if the custodial parent dies. But if the other parent hasn’t been involved in raising the child, or you believe that parent isn’t fit to have custody, there are steps you can take to try to prevent that parent from gaining custody. (See “Naming Someone to Care for Young Children” in Chapter 3.)

    Your Children’s Property

    Legally, minors can’t own any significant amount of property outright. So you need to nominate an adult to supervise and manage any property owned by your child, including property you leave to the child, other inheritances, or the child’s own earnings. There are several different legal devices you can use to leave property to your young children. These are discussed in Chapter 3.

    Planning for Incapacity

    In addition to making plans to leave your property, it’s crucial that you make arrangements for the handling of your medical and financial affairs if you ever become incapacitated and can’t take care of them yourself. Wrenching family conflicts can arise if you haven’t clearly specified your wishes. Creating binding legal documents that express your desires and appoint people to step in for you is discussed in Chapter 4.

    Protecting Assets in Case of Catastrophic Illness

    Many people are concerned that if they become seriously ill, all their assets will be consumed to pay for health care costs. To address this reasonable concern, some people hope that there is a simple clause or trust they can use to shield their assets. Unfortunately, no such device exists. The best you can do is:

    1. Seek advice from an attorney who is knowledgeable about the type of (complex and expensive) trusts that could protect your assets, such as a “Medicaid trust” or a “domestic asset protection trust.”
    2. If you’re married or coupled, learn how to protect the assets of the spouse or partner who isn’t ill.

    This is covered in depth in Long-Term Care: How to Plan & Pay for It, by Joseph L. Matthews (Nolo).

    Transferring Your Property After You Die

    To arrange for the transfer of your property to your beneficiaries after you die, you must use one or some combination of various legal devices. The two most popular are wills and living trusts. Deciding which transfer devices are best for you is the main technical aspect of basic estate planning, and it’s where law and legal documents come into play.

    Some people with complex family situations or complicated business holdings may need a lawyer to help them figure out what kind of estate planning they need. However, with help from this book, many people will be able to determine which device or combination of devices is best for them, without hiring a lawyer.

    Wills

    A will, the simplest estate planning device to prepare, is a document that leaves some or all of your property to beneficiaries you choose. You can also use a will to name an adult guardian for your young children. Wills are discussed in detail in Chapter 5.

    The principal drawback of a will is that it must normally go through probate, a complicated and expensive court proceeding. Probate rarely provides any real benefit to your beneficiaries, or, indeed, to anyone, except the lawyers involved. You can read more about probate in Chapter 5.

    Living Trusts

    A living trust is a legal document similar to a will in function, except that no probate or other court proceedings are required to turn property over to beneficiaries. Because of this, living trusts are a popular probate-avoidance device. A living trust can only distribute property that is legally owned by the trust. So, you must legally transfer property to your trust when or after you create it. Read more about living trusts in Chapter 6.

    Other Ways to Transfer Property

    There are a number of other ways to transfer property—and avoid probate—that can be useful in certain situations. These methods include:

    • pay-on-death accounts for bank deposits or securities (stocks and bonds)
    • transfer on death real estate deeds
    • transfer on death vehicle registration
    • joint tenancy, a form of ownership where the surviving owner(s) automatically receive the interest of a deceased owner without probate, and
    • tenancy by the entirety, a special version of joint tenancy specifically limited to married people.

    These and other easy ways to avoid probate are discussed at greater length in Chapter 7.

    Estate Taxes

    Don’t worry about estate taxes until you find out whether or not your estate will owe them. Almost all won’t. For deaths in 2024, an estate must be worth more than $13.61 million (net) before it’s liable for federal estate taxes. This amount will rise with inflation. That said, a small handful of states also impose estate taxes, and in a few of those, the exemption isn’t nearly as low as the federal exemption. In those states, it is possible that your estate may be liable for state estate taxes even if you don’t have millions of dollars. Read more about estate taxes in Chapter 9.

    Making Changes

    A few estate planning tools are irrevocable by definition—for example, joint tenancy and irrevocable trusts. (See Chapter 10.) But for the most part, you aren’t locked into anything when you prepare your basic estate planning documents, such as your will, living trust, or powers of attorney. You can change, amend, or revoke those documents any time you want to, for any reason—or no reason.

    Keep in mind, however, that to update your documents or make new ones, you must be “competent” when you make a change. Legally, “competence” means having the mental capacity to make and understand decisions regarding your property. You have to be pretty far gone before you aren’t legally competent to change your documents. For instance, forgetfulness—including not always remembering who people are— doesn’t by itself establish mental incompetence.

    More Estate Planning Resources From Nolo

    For more than 50 years, Nolo has published books, software, articles, and forms that help people make informed choices about estate planning. Below is a list of Nolo products that address different aspects of estate planning and related matters.

    • Plan Your Estate, by Denis Clifford, offers in-depth coverage of all significant elements of estate planning, from simple wills to complex tax-saving trusts, from funerals to family businesses.
    • Quicken WillMaker & Trust helps you to prepare a comprehensive will, which includes naming a personal guardian for your young children, naming property managers for young beneficiaries, and naming a caretaker for your pet. You can also use Quicken WillMaker & Trust to prepare a living trust, health care directives (including living wills and durable powers of attorney for health care), financial durable powers of attorney, transfer on death deeds, a document that sets out your wishes for final arrangements, and other useful legal forms.
    • Quick & Legal Will Book, by Denis Clifford, shows you how to prepare a basic will efficiently using documents downloaded to your computer.
    • Make Your Own Living Trust, by Denis Clifford, provides a complete explanation of how to prepare a living trust. The book contains forms and information that show you how to create individual living trusts, shared living trusts, and basic wills.
    • Special Needs Trusts: Protect Your Child’s Financial Future, by Kevin Urbatsch and Jessica Farinas Jones, gives you all the information and forms you need to create a trust that provides for a person with a disability without jeopardizing eligibility for government benefits.
    • Saving the Family Cottage: Creative Ways to Preserve Your Cottage, Cabin, Camp, or Vacation Home for Future Generations, by Stuart J. Hollander, Rose Hollander, and Ann O’Connell, explains succession planning for a vacation home, covering issues that can arise with shared ownership, from choosing the right legal entity for that home to renting it.
    • 8 Ways to Avoid Probate, by Mary Randolph, offers a thorough discussion of all the major ways to transfer property at death without probate.
    • The Executor’s Guide: Settling a Loved One’s Estate or Trust, by Mary Randolph, is a comprehensive handbook to help executors and trustees wind up a deceased person’s affairs. It can also help you get your estate in shape for your own executor or trustee.
    • The Trustee’s Legal Companion, by Liza Hanks and Carol Elias Zolla, presents a comprehensive explanation of serving as a trustee of a living trust, including state-by-state charts of all relevant laws.
    • Get It Together: Organize Your Records So Your Family Won’t Have To, by Melanie Cullen, with Shae Irving, provides a complete system you can use to organize your legal documents, financial records, and other important personal information for your executor and other loved ones.
    • How to Probate an Estate in California, by Lisa Fialco, shows how to probate an uncomplicated California estate without an attorney.
    • Long-Term Care: How to Plan & Pay for It, by Joseph L. Matthews, is a practical guide that provides all the information you need to help make the best arrangements for long-term care. It shows how to protect assets, arrange home health care, find nursing- and non-nursing-home residences, evaluate nursing home insurance, and understand Medicare, Medicaid, and other benefit programs.
    • Social Security, Medicare & Government Pensions: Get the Most Out of Your Retirement & Medical Benefits, by Joseph L. Matthews, shows you the way through the current maze of rights and benefits for those 55 and older, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security retirement and disability benefits, as well as age-discrimination protections.
    • Nolo’s Guide to Social Security Disability: Getting & Keeping Your Benefits, by David A. Morton, helps you understand who is eligible for Social Security disability benefits and shows you how to get any benefits that are due to you.

    You can find all of these resources on www.nolo.com. There, you’ll also find lots of free legal information on a wide range of topics, including plenty of material to help you plan your estate.


    We hope you enjoyed this sample chapter. The complete book is available for sale here at Nolo.com.

4.3

3 Reviews
5 Star
33%
4 Star
67%
3 Star
0%
2 Star
0%
1 Star
0%

Delivers as promised

By Colin J.

Estate Planning Basics delivers exactly what it promises—a basic but comprehensive overview of estate planning. It is of significant value to those of us who are not lawyers. It would be helpful if it included more examples for same-sex couples and IRS links for updates to estate tax exemptions. But to be fair it does provide a link on page 31 to an online resource for the legal rights of same-sex couples. Overall a very helpful guide to a complicated subject. Well done author Dennis Clifford.

Posted on 2/7/2024

Well worth the Money

By Carol J.

This product is easy to understand. It makes it easy to formulate a will.

Posted on 2/7/2024

Review

By Anonymous

I did not sit down and read it on arrival. One has to have time for that. So I can only comment that it really looks like it is BASIC but well presented.

Posted on 2/7/2024

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought