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Estate Planning Missteps: How to Learn From Celebrity Mistakes

When you are involved in administering a will or an estate of an individual who has passed, you will learn very quickly the peace of mind that comes from that estate being planned correctly.

The newly released book, Trial & Heirs: Famous Fortune Fights! by Danielle and Andrew Mayoras presents the stories behind cases involving real courtroom battles over the settling of wills of A-list celebrities and individuals.

The book puts readers in a front-row-seat as it retells tales of the juicy court battles over the estates of such notables as Michael Jackson, Brooke Astor, Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith, Ray Charles, Princess Di, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks.

These are just a few of the cases where details of the proceedings are revealed in order to show readers how they could avoid the same missteps when handling their estate. While the amount of money in question makes the proceedings even stickier, many situations stemming from these cases could have been prevented with appropriate estate planning.

The Mayoras are renowned legacy attorneys and authors. The dynamic law team are also co-founders of the Center for Elder Law, the Center for Special Needs Planning and the Center for Probate Litigation. Financial exploitation of senior citizens is a serious problem these days. The authors wrote about the bumbled estates of celebrities to help consumers avoid similar problems.

"Our goal was to take a difficult topic that no one wants to talk about and make it fun and entertaining with the use of famous stories," said Danielle Mayoras. "How do I get my parents to talk about these issues? This book is the answer."

I’ve Done My Estate Planning...Now What? Trial & Heirs’ Top 10 Tips
1. Create an “assets” list, including the account numbers, names of financial institutions, and related information for your insurance, stocks, bonds, CD’s, securities, bank accounts, and other investments.

2. Keep your “professionals” information together, by maintaining the business cards in a folder, or otherwise compiling the names and contact information of the professionals that you work with, such as your estate planning attorney, accountant, insurance agent, and financial advisor.

3. Store your “assets” list and “professionals” information with your estate planning documents, such as your will, trust, power of attorneys, living will/advance directive, and any other related documents.

4. Place these documents and information into a fireproof box, safe, or safe deposit box that your family members can access.

5.Talk to your loved ones to let them know where to find your estate planning documents, “assets” list and “professionals” information.

6. If you wish to make any changes to your estate planning documents, do so only with the help of an estate planning attorney (as opposed to verbal or written instructions that you do yourself); keep the amendments and codicils together with your original documents.

7. Review and update your estate planning documents and financial plan with your professionals, every three to five years, or sooner as life events happen.

8. If you have a revocable living trust, work with your estate planning team, including your financial advisor and attorney, to ensure that your investments, insurance, home, and other assets are properly titled into your trust (which is called “funding” the trust).

9. Consult with an elder law attorney and/or long term care insurance specialist to make sure that you have a viable long-term care plan in place for you.

10. Encourage your loved ones to do their estate planning. If you need help, Trial & Heirs: Famous Fortune Fights! has “Ideas to Spark Family Discussion.”

Trial & Heirs: Famous Fortune Fights! is published by Wise Circle Books and sells for $19.99. Visit www.TrialandHeirs.com to see more.

James Rothaar

James has written content for Justluxe.com and other leading online luxury lifestyle magazines. Rothaar previously served as the senior-tenured staff writer for JustLuxe, having worked with the digital magazine since 2005. He resides in Jacksonville, Florida, and works as an independent marketing consultant and freelance writer and copywriter. He is the co-owner of Wild Owl Digital, a boutique mar...(Read More)

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