If you have an elderly loved one who is no longer able to care for him or herself, you may need to go through the process of appointing a legal guardian to make decisions for that person. The same is true for children whose parents are no longer able to care for them. In such cases, a guardian has the ability to make legal decisions for the child or incompetent adult. Such legal decisions include matters of schooling, health and medical care, and day-to-day life. Through guardianship, a more stable and safe environment can be established for the ward. Additionally, in Nevada, guardianship is not limited to the guardianship of persons. It may also be the case that a guardian is needed for the estate of a minor child or incompetent adult.

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What You Need to Know About Nevada Asset Protection

After working your whole life to provide for your family and future, it is only prudent to want to protect your assets as much as you can. One effective option for this is an asset protection trust in Nevada. This is an instrument that allows the grantor, the person who owns the assets, to establish the trust and to have the power to decide how the trust will be set up and the assets distributed. They also become the beneficiary of the trust. [Read more…]

Estate planning involves preparing for how the management and disposal of a person’s estate will be handled upon the death of that individual. Some important estate planning documents include a last will, a living will, powers of attorney, and a trust.

During the process of estate planning, you want to consider the different ways to maximize what you leave behind to your beneficiaries. In fact, you should want to minimize what is lost to taxes and court fees. One way to do this is through a trust. [Read more…]

Asset Protection

Avoiding probate, minimizing estate taxes, and ensuring a desired distribution of your estate are not the only components of estate planning with which one must be concerned. In today’s litigious environment, ever-increasing consumer debt, and aggressive collections efforts by creditors, a critical component of anyone’s estate plan is asset protection. Insulating the family’s wealth through the implementation of an appropriate asset protection strategy can protect your estate from creditor claims and expensive lawsuits. Some of the most frequently used asset protection tools are discussed below. Not all asset protection strategies will be effective in every situation. Nevada’s fraudulent conveyance statutes could apply under a particular set of circumstances, and those laws could invalidate conveyances of property which were made to hinder, delay or defraud current or future creditors.  [Read more…]

Advantages of Living Trusts

Avoiding Probate

Regardless of the size of your estate, one of the primary advantages to using a Living Trust is avoiding Probate. In southern Nevada, Probate will normally cost between 5% and 8% of the gross value of your estate, taking into consideration attorney’s fees, costs, personal representative fees, and creditor claims. Additionally, Probate on average will take between four and nine months to complete, thus, freezing the assets over this period which your family may need at this most desperate time. With respect to persons who own real property in different states, they will have to endure multiple probates of that real property if they fail to implement a Living Trust. This occurs because real property can only be probated in the jurisdiction in which the land is located. By using a Living Trust, no Probate in any jurisdiction would be necessary since the property would be owned by a trustee at the time of your death, not you individually. [Read more…]