Probate & Estates

Many people dread having the estate planning talk with their family. However, this talk involves important topics like what you plan to leave them in your will, who will succeed you in the family business and who will inherit the family home.

The holiday season can actually be one of the best times to have these discussions. If the family is scattered throughout the country, this may be one of the rare occasions when you’re all together. The estate planning talk certainly shouldn’t be the focus of your holiday gathering, but it’s worth taking a bit of time out to take care of it so that everyone is on the same page.

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For most of us, our home is the most valuable asset we have. It’s also often a highly sentimental one. That’s why you need to give it careful consideration when you do your estate planning. You want to make a smart financial decision about what will happen to it when you’re gone.

Many people leave their home to one or more of their children. That can necessitate some difficult conversations if you have multiple children who were counting on inheriting the family home. Whether you have one property to hand down or an additional vacation home, the bequeathing of all properties need to be done responsibly. Otherwise, there can be legal, tax and financial burdens for your children that you didn’t anticipate.

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Many people throughout Pennsylvania and throughout the country have been watching the latest in the saga of former National Football League player Lamar Odom and his estranged wife, Khloe Kardashian. Odom was initially hospitalized and in a coma after being found unconscious in a brothel in Nevada.

The two had already signed divorce papers. However, because of a backlog in the California courts, the divorce had not yet been finalized.

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It was a sad coda to the already-tragic suicide of Robin Williams. The comedian and Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams died last year at 63. Then his widow and his three children, whose mothers had previously been married to Williams, started battling in court over his estate.

Susan Williams, who was married to the beloved performer when he killed himself in Aug. 2014, filed a petition last December in a San Francisco court asking that her late husband’s possessions that were in the couple’s home at the time of his death not be included in his children’s inheritance. She also claimed that some of those items were taken from the home without her permission.

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