Your Voice, Your Choices: Thinking about Living Wills and Advance Directives
Iowa Estate Plan
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1w ago
 I'll be the first to admit it: sometimes we breeze over the discussion of Advanced Directives and Living Wills discussion during estate plan consultations. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of clients don't really grasp the depths of these critical documents. Here's a pretty good guide and discussion of the issues and documents that relate to this topic.  A recent saga from a case in Oklahoma helps illustrate how complex this "simple" question can really be even when the client actually has a Living Will in place. The individual had a valid Living Will in place, but as her situation ..read more
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Who Should Handle Your Assets After Death? Professional or an Amateur?
Iowa Estate Plan
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1y ago
Most people like to start with considering friends and family members as trustees. They are going to be most familiar with you and your family, and they will understand your family’s dynamics.  In addition, family members often do not charge a trustee fee (although they are usually entitled to take a fee). Cost conscious clients see this as a plus, but it may not be the best decision in the long run.  Most individuals don't have experience on what is involved with being a trustee. Thus, they have to learn on the job and perhaps by trial and error. Unfortunately, that learning proc ..read more
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Iowa Inheritance Tax - A Thing of the Past in the Future?
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
  It isn't uncommon to be discussing an estate plan with a client on beneficiaries of their estate plan and they will mention that they want to leave a gift to a sibling, or a nephew/niece, or a friend, or son-in-law, or their favorite estate planning attorney.  (Okay, I made that last one up, but holding out hope...subject to ethical concerns.)  And while we can certainly make a bequest to those individuals, I always give the disclaimer that there is an Iowa Inheritance tax that would need to be paid.  Sometimes that prompts a few comments about taxes that aren't favorabl ..read more
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Will Contests in Iowa Before Death? Nope.
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
 Check out my post on the pre-mortem will contest on the Probate-Iowa blog.  Too tired to click and just want the short answer?  Can't do it in Iowa.  Have to wait until the person dies before you challenge the will ..read more
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Cheated Out of an Inheritance? Better Stay on Your Toes If You Want to File a Lawauit.
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
As I discuss in more detail on the post on my Iowa probate blog, a recent ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court significantly changes the time period in which to bring a lawsuit for interference with inheritance.  In short: don't wait very long ..read more
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Protection for Elders in Iowa From Financial Exploitation
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
What is "elder abuse"? As provided in Iowa Code 235F, elder abuse means any of the following: 1.     Physical injury to, unreasonable confinement, punishment or assault of a vulnerable elder 2.     Sexual offense with or against a vulnerable elder 3.     Neglect by a caretaker of a vulnerable elder a.     Includes the deprivation of the minimum food, shelter, clothing, supervision, or physical or mental health care necessary to maintain life or health 4.     Financial exploitation of a vulnerab ..read more
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Probate Issues in Iowa Now a Separate Blog
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
Way back in 2009, or whenever I started this blog, I posted about probate topics as well as estate planning.  (I'm not sure I expected to be blogging still in 2020.  My dream of retiring at age 44 and retiring to a caribbean island just didn't materialize.)  Then one day I looked at the site address-Iowa Estate Plan--and decided maybe it made more sense to keep probate topics on one site and keep this as estate planning.  Plus, I purchased the Probate Iowa site and decided I should probably put something on it. There will always be some overlap between the topics, but with ..read more
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COVID-19 and Suspension of Physical Presence for the Execution of Legal Documents
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
Each day gets crazier and crazier on COVID-19's impact on our society, including in the estate planning world.  Under Iowa long-standing law (Iowa Code sec. 633.279), when an individual signs their will, it is required that they sign in the presence of two individuals.  This has been pretty strictly adhered to by Iowa courts in requiring the physical presence of the witnesses. Today, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds issued a proclamation suspending the requirement of physical presence of individuals witnessing the signing of wills and medical power of attorney documents provided that the ..read more
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Retirement Accounts and Conduit Trusts and SECURE Act. What Do I Need to Do???
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
The recent passage of the “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement” Act (SECURE Act) in December 2019 created some significant changes to retirement accounts.  One big change of SECURE resulted in changes to allowing what is commonly referred to as “stretch” IRA’s. Previously, beneficiaries such as children and grandchildren, were able to have funds withdrawn from an inherited retirement account over the rest of their expected life. That allowed younger beneficiaries to extend (or stretch) the IRA distributions over several years, or potentially decades for very young benefi ..read more
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Iowa Guardians and Conservators: Substantial Changes in Store for 2020
Iowa Estate Plan
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3y ago
If you are (a) currently acting as the guardian and/or conservator for an Iowa resident or (b) plan to be appointed as guardian and/or conservator for an Iowa resident, bigly changes are in place for 2020 for annual reports or initial reports starting January 1, 2020. I'll leave the procedural details out for now.  (Nobody except for attorneys really read those anyway). Maybe another post for another day.  But for the annual reports for guardians and/or conservators, the forms are going from the very basic two pages (or so), to 16 and 19 pages long, respectively.  Gra ..read more
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