“Joint Tenancy With Right of Survivorship” means that each person has equal access to the property. When one owner dies, that person’s share immediately passes to the other owner(s) in equal shares, without going through probate. This is the opposite of owning property as “Tenants in Common” wherein when one of the owners dies, his  Read More

Problem #1: Probate. Probate is the Court-supervised process of passing title and ownership of a deceased person’s property to his or her heirs. The process consists of assembling assets, giving notice to creditors, paying bills and taxes, and passing title to property when the judge signs the order. Probate can cost your loved ones a  Read More

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 provides an exclusion of the federal estate tax for estates valued at or less than the applicable exclusion value for the year of death. In 2009 that exclusion was $3.5 million. Therefore, if your estate was valued under $3.5 million, there would be no estate  Read More

In Part-1, I discussed the basics of setting up this type of Trust, and reviewed some of the important features of a CRT. Below are some answers to the most popular questions my clients ask about this type of Trust. “How does a Charitable Remainder Trust make a difference?” If they transfer title to the  Read More

In this column, I will describe the basics of the Charitable Remainder Trust. In part 2, I will follow up with answers to the most asked questions regarding the benefits and regulations of this type of Trust. If you own a highly appreciated asset (such as stocks, real estate or a business) — and if  Read More