Estate Planning

When creating an estate plan, the main decision is how your assets will be distributed after you pass away. Understanding "per stirpes" and "per capita" distribution is key to that decision. ...

Making sure you have the right estate planning documents is one of the simplest ways to have a positive impact on your family's future. Proper planning ensures that your wishes will be followed after you are gone.

Married couples have a special way to jointly own property in some states, which has advantages over regular joint ownership. If you are married and own property jointly, make sure you have the right form of ownership.

Estate planning gives you control over what happens to your assets, your health care, and your loved ones. The myths that prevent people from planning often lead to unnecessary hardship for families.

No matter how well couples plan their estates, no one plans for divorce. Here are some strategies to make sure your wishes are protected during and after the process of divorce.

Prepaying for your funeral is one way to ease the burden on your family following your death and make sure your wishes are carried out. But pre-paid funeral plans come with risks, so you need to exercise care when purchasing...

Ideally, when a second marriage joins two families together, it should be a joyous occasion that creates one bigger family unit. Unfortunately, it too often also creates inheritance fights between stepparents and children.

Movies, television, and books like to present wills in dramatic ways--handwritten notes, videos, deathbed utterances--but what actually makes a will valid? The law varies depending on what state you live in, but there are some basic rules. ...

When creating advance directives in order to plan for the possibility that you may one day be unable to make your own medical decisions, there can be confusion about the difference between a living will and a "do-not-resuscitate" order.