A few times when it is critcal to update your Will or Trust – Oklahoma Estate Planning
It is huge accomplishment to have your Last Will and Testament done. You can rest easier knowing you have provided for your family and created an orderly plan to transfer what you have to who you want it to go to. Once you have this done, there are several times in your life when you may need to consider updating the Will or Trust to match current your circumstances. Let me mention a few:
1. You have another child.
2. Someone named in your Will to act as your personal representative (executor) either is no longer around or no longer wants to serve.
3. Someone in your Will who you left a large part of your estate to has passed away.
4. Children named in your Will or Trust have grown up and are ready to receive their inheritence with fewer strings attached to it or no strings at all.
5. You have divorced, suffered the death of a spouse or remarried. (It is particularly important in a second marriage that involves children from previous relationships to carefully plan your estate).
6. You have simply changed your mind about what you want to give, who want to help administer your estate or who to whom you want to give your property.
You update your Will or Trust becauase you want it to reflect your current thoughts and circumstances. If circumstances have changed, feel free to contact me to discuss updating your Will or Trust at sjr@shawnjroberts.com.
How to get started blogging in 5 minutes
The web is full of material on blogging, a search for the term in Google retrieves 53,200,000 results. But for people who have not blogged and maybe don’t use the web much, starting a blog is a daunting task. Yes, there are several great blogging platforms that make it “easy”, easy compared with what though? If you don’t spend a lot of time on the computer and maybe still think of “Java” as a drink rather than a programming language, getting started blogging is hard. (For an intro to what blogging is try this).
This post is intended to help people get a basic start in blogging. Start the blog, make a few posts, give it a test run. If you like it, there is a web full of resources to take your blog “to the next level.” Below are the steps to starting your blog:
1. Choose a name. I am assuming you are blogging for business, so choose a name that either is your business name or represents something you want to promote in your business. For me, it is simply my law firm name, for others it might be catchy tag that represents what the person offers (for example consider venture capitalists Fred Wilson’s AVC blog).
2. Create an account at www.wordpress.com (its free). While there are many places to blog, start with the free wordpress.com. Go here and set up an account. 
3. Write a few posts. Some people never make it into blogging because they can’t understand how to post. I will make it simple: write about things you, based on your experiences, particular in your business. If you are a plumber, write a short post about 3-4 mistakes that most people in trying to fix their own plumbing problems. If you are a CPA, start with 3-4 tips that will save people money on their taxes, but that most people miss. Then once you are started, try to make one post each week. Share your business experiences, give tips and tricks, highlight interesting or helpful things in your industry, ask questions etc. . .
Check out this screencast I made that shows the steps in getting your wordpress.com blog going.
Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions.
The Blogger’s Code of Conduct
Although it is several years old now, Tim O’Reilly’s the Blogger’s Code of Conduct is still as pertinent, poingant and helfpful as ever.
According to Wikipedia the “proposal by Tim O’Reilly for bloggers to enforce civility on their blogs by being civil themselves and moderating comments on their blog. The code was proposed due to threats made to blogger Kathy Sierra.”
The concept of a blogger’s code was first reported by the BBC News, who quoted O’Reilly saying, “I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn’t come through any kind of regulation it would come through self-regulation.”
O’Reilly and others came up with these seven ideas:
1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.
Give me some feeback, fill in the blank Idea number __________ is the most pressing need for blogging currently and tell me why.
Apple vs. Amazon
Good read from All Things D on two companies, Apple and Amazon, that have different appoaches but similar successful bottom lines.
Amazon and Apple: Two Tablet Makers, Two Drastically Different Fourth Quarters
What I do
I put together this presentation for a networking group I am part of. The goal was to share what I do, some tips and some resources on www.shawnjroberts.com.
The ties that bind us: Oklahoma non-compete agreements
This is a slide show from a presentation I did last year explaining some of the basics of Oklahoma non-compete agreements and the legal issues to consider when dealing with non-compete agreements.
Written contracts are better than good intentions
To paraphrase a bit course but well-known saying “The road to business success is paved with good intentions“. Every person I have met in my practice intends to succeed, to get along with everyone else in the business and all of the customers and competitors. We all know that reality is often an obstacle to fulfilling the good intentions.
Even better than good intentions is having a written contract to document your business relationship. Let me give you a couple of reasons:
1. A written contract provides the forum for both parties to share their “intentions” prior to the start of the relationship; once the intentions are on the table, you can discuss, debate and hopefully ultimately agree on the key points.
2. A written contact protects from someone with bad but yet to be disclosed intentions.
3. A written contract lays out how to end the relationship, usually without a lot of acrimony and without time in court.
How would I sum this all up? Keep your good intentions and put them into practice, just augment them with a solid written agreement.
5 considerations in naming your children’s guardian
Yesterday, I reviewed the process of naming a guardian for your minor children. This week I cover the important considerations in determining the guardians:
1. The stage in life of the proposed guardian(s). Are the people at a place in their life or will they be in place where they want to have children? People who are finishing raising their children and moving on to another stage in life may not want to take on children.
2. The resources of the proposed guardians(s). Raising and supporting children can be expensive. When thinking about guardians consider whether the people who would be guardians generally have the resources to care for additional children. This is an area where life insurance (on the lives of the parents) can be helpful.
3. The religious beliefs of the proposed guardian(s). The guardians could end raising your children having a profound impact on their development both physical and spiritual. If it is important to you to have your children raised in the faith which you believe, this is something to consider.
4. Special needs. Do any of your children have special needs? If so, are the proposed guardians prepared to meet those needs and care for the children in the way that is necessary?
5. Legal qualification. These requirements are usually minimal (e.g., not a convicted felon, non-US citizen etc. . .) but something to consider as a threshold requirement.
The process of naming a guardian for your children
While it is not the most exciting part of the estate planning process, nominating the people you want to be guardian of your children obviously has a huge impact. When parents pass away, the guardianship of minor children is established by a court. The court either follows a statute which lists relatives who are entitled to be named guardians or, looks to your nomination. If the court has consider people named in a statute, there is more potential for conflict over who is named guardian.
Conversley, nomination is important because unless there are specific facts that make the people you nominate unfit, the Court usually appoints the people who are nominated. You “nominate” people by simply naming them in a Will or Trust. In the process of addressing many other estate planning issues, people can cover the issue of guardianship.
Tomorrow, I will discuss the factors to consider in determining who your guardian(s) should be.
Oklahoma estate planning: If I have a living trust, do I still need a will?
[I wrote this post a few months ago and it was well received so I am running it again for anyone that might be interested]
I have talked quite a bit both on this blog and in my Oklahoma estate planning podcast about how the living trust in last will and testament work together. However, I realize there are still some questions about why someone would have a will if they already have a living trust. Also, the question comes up “why would I need a trust if I already have a last will and testament”?
Usually when you have a living trust you will also have a last will and testament which is often known as a pour-over will. The purpose of this will is to send any property that has not been transferred to your trust at the time you pass away to the trust. The living trust is still the primary document that controls your estate and disposes of your property. The pour-over will is a safety net that simply provides that all of your property goes to your living trust.
If you have a fully functional last will and testament, you probably will not have a living trust. In this case, the last will and testament will actually determine where your property goes, nominate guardians for your minor children and address other issues related to death in the transfer of property.
If you want to find out more about these topics please consider listening to my podcast series which is 8 brief episodes providing more detail on estate planning. You can subscribe to the podcast, Estate Planning Demystified, in iTunes or listen to it right here.
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