Is it Hyatt Legal Plans / Metlaw? IMO it will be worth it if you need to prepare any documents like wills, trusts (they are very different), or do all of them (estate planning). You should go to a presentation or do some reading on Estate Planning to learn the difference between wills and trusts, they’re very different, but complimentary. I get spam in the mail from local law firms that do free estate planning presentations once or twice a year. I’ve found quotes between $1800 and $4500 for estate planning around here, but it should be fully covered under the group legal plan, assuming you can find a lawyer that does these services in your area. In fact I found out about that at one such presentation, and I’ve just signed up to get this done next year.
Basically a WILL just tells the judge / executor what you want to do with your assets after you’re gone. A TRUST is a legal entity that owns or can receive assets. Things that you own directly (as opposed to things owned by a trust) are subject to probate, and this is different in every state. In CA, if your estate ASSET VALUE (not the “net worth”) exceeds some small amount (I think $150K), then everything you own goes through probate and a judge gets to decide what to do with your assets. Usually the judge will just follow the WILL if you had one and it was properly prepared, but this could take months to years, the assets are frozen in the meantime, and your property could even be foreclosed if someone else doesn’t pay the bills. Also probate isn’t free, the cost depends on the total value of assets.
But if you personally don’t own anything and everything is in trusts (which do not die), then all those assets do not go through probate. The trust would have a contingent beneficiary, meaning the person who becomes the beneficiary of the trust if the primary beneficiary (you) pass away. There’s also something called a Pour-over Will, which is a WILL that, in case of your demise, moves your personal assets that may not already be in a trust, into a trust (thus avoiding probate). All these documents (plus medical and/or financial Power of Attorney, health care directive, advanced medical directive, and probably some others) are prepared as part of Estate Planning.
That’s how I understand it anyway. I’m not a lawyer.
It’s all in how the will is worded. “I leave all my assets to my son Joe” means whatever assets you have at death (that you already had, or acquire in the future) will go to Joe. If you specify assets, and in the future have assets that arent mentioned, you’ll have to formally amend the will to include those new assets. And for that matter, naming specific names will inherently exclude anyone not named, while being more vague (saying “to my children”) can cover future beneficiaries without producing an amendment.
No one can really advise you as to how specific you need to be, other than a lawyer working directly with you. There are benefits to being specific and to being vague, but either can also come with serious pitfalls. Only your specific circumstances and details determine what language is most appropriate.
Thanks for the detailed information. We signed up for Hyatt Legal Plan/Metlaw ($9.50 per paycheck). I think it is paid after tax from payroll. We will check with Lawyer about estate planning. We waited until we become citizens.
WWe will inherit some assets in foreign county. We have home and saving here. We will discuss with Lawyer and get their feedback. This plan also covers property tax protest.
I am very interested in what they consider to be the max time they will spend on your estate planning. If you don’t mind following up after speaking with them, I would appreciate it. We just finished open enrollment and skipped the legal plan. I presumed, probably incorrectly, that they would have a maximum hours spent per incident/client.
Thanks for the suggestion. My will is coming up on 10 years and circumstances have changed so that I am now interested in learning more about trusts. One of the downsides of keeping our names off of mailing lists is that we don’t get many offers for ways to spend money.
Technically I’m not on any mailing lists (didn’t you see my privacy thread?), but I own property in my name and I’m guessing they send their letters to all homeowners in the area.
Of course they always ask for personal information when you either sign up in advance or show up at such presentations (their goal is to sell you their services after all), so I come prepared with a fake name and a non-existent address.
Regarding property tax filing, is it possible to delay until Jan/2020 in Texas to bunch 2019 and 2020 taxes together to get itemized deductible more than standard deductible during alternate years. My tax is paid by mortgage company using escrow account. Not sure if i can call them ask them to delay the payment.
I would verify this strategy with someone in your state that is more knowledgeable than me. I live in WA state and the due dates of our taxes don’t allow this strategy to work here in my county, but it looks like TX assessment is done beginning of the year and sent out in Oct but not due until Jan 31st the following year.
It looks to me that you can pay your 2019 taxes in Jan 2020 and pay your 2020 taxes in Dec 2020 to bundle your tax payments into one calendar year. With TX being one of the highest property tax states this would be a huge benefit to itemize property taxes (but only up to $10k).
I would call your escrow company to see when they pay and cancel to pay it yourself if you can.
It depends on when the taxes are assessed and when they are due.
If the assessment occurs in the current year and the taxes are due in the next year, you (or your servicer) can pay them in whichever year is more advantageous for you.
Keep in mind that total state and local tax deductions are limited to $10k.
It is $10k max for one tax filing year? My property tax is $10k+ per year. I guess there is no use of bundling 2 years of taxes into 1 year payment. Thanks for the information.
To those of you with bank accounts that require a certain number of transactions per month to remain fee free, or to guarantee a higher interest rate… what do you do to meet your minimum number of transactions each month (assuming it isn’t your main bank account)?
Actual debit transactions are too risky** and time-consuming, which is why I’ve never bothered with this. Some of the more interesting ideas I recall and would consider doing myself are amazon GC reloads and small ($1) charity donations, executed on a schedule using a script / batch file.
**because the high interest checking account with many thousands in it could be drained if the debit card data is stolen, causing the account holder to deal with restoring those balances, reversing overdraft fees, waiting for a debit card replacement, and losing interest income.
Some older links on the subject, which might warrant a separate thread if we don’t already have one:
@scripta thank you. These are the exact links I was looking for. I couldn’t remember if they were on here or DoC. I agree 100% with you on the high interest “rewards” checking accounts. I refuse to chase those rates with those accounts in part because of what you point out. In my case, I just got $200 of a $300 checking account bonus, but the final $100 is paid on the 1 year anniversary. Instead of keeping $2,500 in it for a year to keep it fee free (and sacrifice ~$50 in interest), I’d rather keep a low balance and do 6 ~$1 transactions. And then close it when the $100 is paid.
There is a small rate advantage to go from 15 to 10 years, but nothing like changing from a 30 yr to a 15. The closing costs would probably not make it worth it in most cases.
Looks like Amazon Allowance is dead as it requires $5 per transaction for recurring loads. Square Cash is also no good as it requires $10 per transaction for recurring loads. I guess I’ll just have to remember to do them 6 times each month.
