{"id":1617,"date":"2010-11-28T19:06:34","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T02:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/?p=1617"},"modified":"2011-03-20T12:58:09","modified_gmt":"2011-03-20T19:58:09","slug":"downside-to-heirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/downside-to-heirs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Downside to Leaving Your Estate to Heirs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re wondering, &#8220;what are you talking about?\u00a0 Isn&#8217;t it <em>good<\/em> to leave my estate to my heirs?&#8221;\u00a0 Well . . . not necessarily.\u00a0 As I mentioned in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/who-is-heir\/\" target=\"_blank\">this earlier post<\/a>, an &#8220;heir&#8221; is someone who inherits from you if you do <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not<\/span> have a Will or a Trust.\u00a0 That is, they inherit from you based on what Michigan&#8217;s &#8220;intestacy laws&#8221; say. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Before you assume that is &#8220;well and good,&#8221; consider these situations:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Second marriages &#8211; you may be surprised at the amount your children receive (or really what they do <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not<\/span> receive).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Charitable gifts &#8211; if you want to benefit a charity, you better have a Will (or better yet, a Trust), because they are not &#8220;heirs.&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Special needs child &#8211; if receiving governmental assistance is important to their quality of life, too bad, because they are set to get their share outright as an &#8220;heir&#8221; when they turn 18.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A child (or spouse) who is a spendthrift or has substance abuse problems &#8211; in these cases one of the <em>worst<\/em> things you can do is give them a significant sum of money, yet they are entitled to it as an &#8220;heir&#8221; if you haven&#8217;t planned otherwise.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There are many more situations when being an &#8220;heir&#8221; may not be a good thing.\u00a0 These are just some of the more common ones I&#8217;ve observed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The great thing is that you can avoid these pitfalls by taking the time to setup an estate plan with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/firm-overview\/our-team\/\" target=\"_blank\">lawyer who focuses in estate planning<\/a>.\u00a0 These and many other undesired outcomes can be addressed through careful planning that centers on what is most important to you.\u00a0 And it can help you <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/estate-planning\/your-family-legacy\/\" target=\"_blank\">leave the family legacy<\/a> that is important to you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If you find yourself in any of the situations listed above, <strong>call us at 616-827-7596<\/strong> to schedule a Peace of Mind Planning Session to discover how you can &#8220;have your say.&#8221;\u00a0 And if you mention this blog post, we&#8217;ll waive the planning session fee ($750 value!).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><a href=\"..\/index.php\/firm-overview\/our-team\/\" target=\"_blank\">Michael   Lichterman<\/a> is an estate planning attorney who helps families and   business owners create a lasting legacy by planning for their <a href=\"..\/index.php\/estate-planning\/your-family-legacy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Whole Family Wealth\u2122<\/a>.\u00a0 This goes beyond merely planning for finances &#8211; it&#8217;s about who your are and what&#8217;s important to you.\u00a0 He focuses on planning for\u00a0 the &#8220;experienced&#8221; generation, the &#8220;sandwich generation&#8221; (caring for parents and children), doctors\/physicians, nurses, lawyers, dentists, professionals with minor children, and family owned business succession &#8211; and he is privileged to do so from a Christian perspective.\u00a0 He takes the &#8220;counselor&#8221; part of attorney and counselor at law very seriously, and enjoys creating life long relationships with his clients &#8211; many of which have become great friends.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re wondering, &#8220;what are you talking about?\u00a0 Isn&#8217;t it good to leave my estate to my heirs?&#8221;\u00a0 Well . . . not necessarily.\u00a0 As I mentioned in this earlier post, an &#8220;heir&#8221; is someone who inherits from you if you do not have a Will or a Trust.\u00a0 That is, they inherit from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[66,16,30,35,29,75],"class_list":["post-1617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-estate-planning","tag-creating-a-legacy","tag-grand-rapids-estate-planning","tag-grand-rapids-estate-planning-lawyer","tag-grand-rapids-trusts-lawyer","tag-probate-avoidance","tag-wills-and-trusts-attorney-grand-rapids-michigan"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1632,"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions\/1632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lichtermanlaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}