Do I Need a Prenuptial Agreement?
Love Actually: Planning Considerations for Marriage, Divorce, Cohabitation, the Death of a Spouse, and More
Mamma Mia!: Common Estate Planning Issues for Blended Families
How Much an Arizona Divorce Will Cost
DE Talk | Resiliency & Determination: The Military Spouse Employee Makeup
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 7 - Invisible Scars: The Impact of Coercive Control on Children
DE Under 3: An Explanation of the Current Federal Budget Bill Confusion
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 5 - Parallel Proceedings: The Intersection of Criminal Law and Family Law
DE Under 3: U.S. GAO Report on Military Spouse Employment Focused on Challenges of Part-Time Work
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 2 - Mortgage Mastery: Charting a Financial Course Post-Divorce
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 1 - The Truth Behind Coercive Control
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 8 - Narcissism and Parental Alienation Talk
Once Removed Episode 12: SLATs and the Case of McKim vs. McKim
Once Removed Episode 11: Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts, or SLATs
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 6 - “Let’s Gett Serious” Talk
Let's Talk About Common Law Marriage
Let's Talk What to Bring to Your First Family Law Appointment
The $6 Million Wedding
Immigration Settlement Clears the Way for Thousands of H-1B and L-1 Spouses to Work in the US
Marriage and Divorce Considerations for Health Care Providers
What are the essential elements of estate planning for a blended family here in San Diego or across California? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 1 in 5 households in the United States involves a subsequent...more
A new Supreme Court ruling overturns lower courts’ rulings and regulates the application of the “successive heirs” provision of the Succession Law, in instances when a surviving spouse who inherited property by virtue of a...more
Certain life events demand that estate planners work with client testators to adjust their estate plans. Divorce and remarriage are at the top of that list. When matrimony devolves into acrimony – setting the stage for...more
Generally, under New York EPTL 5-1.1-A, if a decedent is survived by a spouse, a right of election is given to the surviving spouse to take a share of the decedent's estate “equal to the greater of (i) fifty thousand dollars...more
So, you have remarried. Perhaps it has been 30 months; maybe 30 years. When you got together the guy/girl moved into your crib. It’s always been titled in your name and it’s the house you got in your divorce from No. 1. Now...more
What is known as the IRS survivor’s penalty, and is there anything that can be done to provide for a surviving spouse as we age? The “survivor’s penalty” is the likelihood that a surviving spouse will face higher federal and...more
Last week, I blogged about the new statute that closed the block hole that existed when a party who held most or all of the assets died during while a divorce was pending. Specifically, the new statute permits the court to...more
When I first read the precedential ruling of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in Shell v. Shell, I really didn’t find it noteworthy enough to write about. This is a case where a spouse discovered that her husband was moving...more
Beginning in 2020 a new topic entered the estate planning world based on studies done at Cornell University. Cornell started what they call a “Family Reconciliation Project” and in 2021 they published data indicating that in...more
Death of a Parent- In the context of a family-owned business, it is often the case that the matriarch or patriarch of the family is also the chief executive of the business. They may have founded the business, or they may...more
Estate planning for the happily married - Hedge your bets with a SLAT One of the biggest challenges of estate planning is dealing with uncertainty. For 2022, for example, the federal gift and estate tax exemption is $12.06...more
In Moore v. Estate of Moore, a decedent’s wife claimed that she had an interest in an oil and gas lease formerly owned by her deceased husband. No. 07-20-00019-CV, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 6142 (Tex. App.—Amarillo July 30, 2021,...more
It happens more often than you think: A surviving spouse is unknowingly excised from their predeceased spouse’s last will and testament to ostensibly be left with nothing. For instance, The Cars front man, Ric Ocasek, removed...more
In Estate of Tillotson, an administrator of a decedent’s estate filed a turn over motion to have the decedent’s husband turn over the decedent’s community property interest in certain accounts. No. 05-20-00258-CV, 2021 Tex....more
California trust and estate disputes often involve allegations that a surviving spouse took advantage of a deceased spouse so as to get more of the latter’s assets. Often the “spousal financial abuse” charges are leveled by...more
In most households, there is one spouse who handles financial matters- paying bills, filing tax returns, planning retirement income. While division of labor might be great, there could be problems if the "non-financial"...more
Spouses who are turning full retirement age this year are the last group who can choose whether to take spousal benefits or to take benefits on their own record. The strategy, used by some couples to maximize their benefits,...more
Mortgagees of Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (“HECMs,” more commonly known as reverse mortgages) obtained a significant victory in an important federal appellate court, which ruled last month that non-borrowing spouses are...more
Individual and corporate citizens from countries around the world have moved to North Carolina and contributed materially to our state's economic, educational, and cultural growth. Foreign direct investment ("FDI") in North...more