Oklahoma Estate Planning is something that every Oklahoma family and person needs to consider. Estate planning is about looking at what you have, who your family and how you want to take care of your family.
Living Trust vs. Simple Will
This table compares the benefits of the revocable living trust and a simple last will and testament. A revocable living trust is an agreement that determines how a person’s assets are handled during their lifetime and how it is distributed after death. A simple Will distributes a person’s assets after death.
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 inheritance 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.
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.
I have followed daily deal sites such as Groupon and Living Social for a few years. I like the concept and have wanted to try but it doesn’t seem to fit my law practice. Google Offers could be different. Rather than being a daily deal, Offers allows the users to set the time limit. You redeem the Google Offer by either printing out and sending me the Offer or showing it to me on your smartphone (although I would probably settle for a screenshot of the coupon). Offers is tied to Google Places and having recently become a “verified” Google Place, I decided to try it.
My first offer is a discount on the normal Living Trust package (I am not working through the official “Google Offers” mechanism, but rather using the functionality for a merchant to offer directly). The normal package includes: 
I usually charge a flat fee of $1,500.00 or higher for this work. In my Google Offer, I am lowering the price by $25% to $1,125.00 (plus any out of pocket costs for things such as recording deeds). Redemption in this case means paying the fee and starting the process.
If you are considering Oklahoma estate planning or know someone who is, here is the Offer. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me sjr@shawnjroberts.com.
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.
I’m not sure why someone would want to do this, but in Oklahoma there are laws that prohibit it.
One is the statutory prohibition on the right of a spouse to will away from the surviving spouse so much of the estate that the surviving spouse would receive less in value than an undivided one-half interest in the property acquired by joint industry of the husband and wife during coverture. A person cannot disinherit a spouse without some type of prior agreement.
If a spouse tries to do this, the surviving spouse has the right of “election”: the obligation imposed upon a party to choose between two inconsistent or alternative rights or claims in cases where there is a clear intention of the person from whom he derives the right that he should not enjoy both.
One exception to this rule is if there is value pre-nuptial agreement.
If you have any questions about this post, Oklahoma estate planning, Wills, Trust or Oklahoma probate, feel free to contact me anytime at sjr@shawnjroberts.com.
This is episode 6 of Estate Planning Demystified – The Living Will. This week’s discussion about the document that is the best example of why estate planning is as much for your family as it is for you. In this episode, I discuss:
1. What the Living Will is;
2. How the Terri Schaivo tradedy shows that a Living Will is critical;
3. The choices you make in a Living Will and several other items.
As always, if you want to contact me check out my website at www.shawnjroberts.com or email me directly at sjr@shawnjroberts.com
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If you recall from the early part of this century, there was a huge legal battle in Florida over whether a poor woman named Terri Schaivo would be kept alive through artificial means (feeding tube) or allowed to pass away. Her husband, who was estranged from her family wanted her to pass away, her family wanted her to remain alive through artificial means. The result was 10 years of litigation, $100,000.00 of dollars in legal fees and unmeasurable pain for the family. A court ultimately decided Ms. Schaivo should be allowed to pass away.
There is a way to prevent this type of battle. In Oklahoma, it is done through an Advance Directive (living will). This document allows you make decisions about how your end-of-life are is handled and appoint a person you trust to help the doctors carry out your decisions. Most other states have the same type of living will provisions.
If the living will is done properly, the doctors, hospital and family are required to follow it:
A physician or other health care provider who is furnished the original or a photocopy of the advance directive shall make it a part of the declarant’s medical record and, if unwilling to comply with the advance directive, promptly so advise the declarant.
If you have questions about a living will or any other estate planning issues, please feel free to contact me and to find out more about estate planning listen to my podcast “Estate Planning Demystified“.
Last week I wrote generally about the benefits of doing estate planning to replace the cookie-cutter plan the State of Oklahoma has for all its citizens. This week my focus is on one aspect of the estate planning process: the appointment of guardians for minor children.
If both parents pass away at the same time or a single parent passes away, Oklahoma law requires that a guardian be appointed. A Judge is going to make this appointment and the process, depending upon the material with which the Judge has to work, can be anywhere from smooth and relatively quick to painful and protracted. There are two sources to which the Judge can look. One is Oklahoma law that provides an order of relatives who might be entitled to appointment; the other, if it exists, the written nomination by the deceased parents of the person they want to serve as the child’s guardian.
If the deceased parent has nominated a competent individual, this person is usually appointed with no issue. If, however, the deceased parent has not nominated anyone, the Judge will consider the law and the request from what frequently turns out to be competing relatives. If there are competing relatives, the child could be placed in foster care until the Judge makes a decision. It also goes without saying that the people with whom the child is placed may not be the people the deceased parents wanted.
The way to avoid this scenario is to nominate a guardian in your Last Will and Testament. While a Judge is not legally required to honor a nomination, for all practical purposes, the Judge will honor the nomination (your choice). In my law practice, we address the critical decision of guardianship in all Wills and Trusts we create.
Communicating and explaining is am important as actually doing in my business. To be able to explain better, I need to understand what people are thinking and how they are viewing things. To assist in this process, I asked people the question on Linkedin (login required): When you hear the phrase “estate planning” what comes to your mind? Check out the answers to the question below.
To me estate planning means determining where, how & to whom my stuff & money are distributed to. but i’m typically wrong when it comes to legal jargon.
Planning for retirement, planning for death, trusts, wills, taxes and probate.
Paperwork. Tons and tons of paperwork.
Preparing your physical, financial, and emotional assets and liabilities to be distributed and dismissed according to your wishes after your imminent demise in a manner that distracts and burdens your loved ones as little as possible.
The overall planning of a person’s wealth is estate planning. All of the assets owned or controlled by a decedent and the debts that were the responsibility of the decedent at the time of deceased’s death are included in estate planning. Estate planning includes the preparation of a will and the planning for taxes after the individual’s death. In order to meet a person’s goals with respect to preparing for incapacity and death, numerous factors such as financial, estate law, insurance, investment, and tax implications must be taken into consideration.
Usually, estate planning includes;
1. creation of a will;
2. limiting estate taxes by setting up trust accounts in the name of beneficiaries;
3. appointing a guardian for living dependents;
4. appointing an executor of the estate to oversee the terms of the will;
5. making funeral arrangements; and
6. establishment of annual gifting to reduce the taxable estate.
Fully and seamlessly providing for my family when I become incapable to do so in the future.
Preparing for the future…
1233 E. 33rd Street,
Edmond, Oklahoma 73013
405.562.7371