Your Money Your Way: Keep the Most, Give the Most, and Enjoy True Peace of Mind

By Timothy Semro

Estate Planning Made Incredibly Easy

In this short, easy-to-read book, using plain language, you'll find stories of how an estate planning lawyer helps people like you plan their estates using legal tools, especially trusts. For example, one family with a special needs child learns about a special needs trust for protection. Another chapter features how a successful doctor and his spouse safeguard their assets from taxes, ensuring a smooth transition to the next generation. The book also tackles the challenge of dividing estates fairly when some children are part of a family business; and a chapter about preserving vacation homes as family treasures, even when not everyone agrees. The last chapter covers charitable giving by a widow, highlighting common issues like taxes and planning hurdles. As a user-friendly, straightforward guide, Your Money, Your Way offers practical insights into estate planning through relatable client stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Timothy Semro
• Release date: Jun 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798990402713

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Cottage

While many of my meetings are with new clients, our estate planning needs change as time passes and our lives evolve. As often occurs, what begins as an attorney-client relationship over the years turns into a great friendship. Every so often, this means a past client will come into the office needing some updates to their planning. So, when I see an estate plan review meeting on my calendar with such a client, I am energized and eager to hear what has transpired since we last met. Usually, but not always, the events that trigger such visits are positive, including the birth of a new grandchild or great-grandchild, retirement, a new vacation home, or some other happy milestone. Sometimes, however, the situations that bring folks back can be more fraught.

That’s how things were with the Powells, a lovely couple I’ve known and worked with for decades. Matt and Jane Powell first came to my office more than twenty years ago after starting their family. Now, all the kids are in their late twenties or early thirties. Where does the time go?

Matt and Jane were realtors and very successful ones at that. You would see their bus stop ads and billboards all over the city. They met when they were trainees at a big national firm, hit it off, started working together, and, well, nature took its course. Not every couple is cut out to work together, but Matt and Jane really nailed it over the years. They got along great, could finish each other’s sentences, and had instinctive senses of how to keep from getting on each other’s nerves. The last point was key to their success since they were together practically 24 hours a day between work and home.

They were fun people, and everybody loved them. Their agency, which they established twenty-five years ago, was one of the biggest and most respected in the city. So, I was very happy to see them on my planner, and when I got to the conference room, where they had already made themselves comfortable, they looked happy to see me as