By Elliott Topkins, Esquire
12/01/11
This post is appearing on the first day of the last month of 2011. That gives each of you 31 days to consider finishing up things which just seem to have been pushed to the back burner while you have spent most of the year trying to survive the economic slowdown we have experienced. My advice: Do not wait until January 1 to make New Year’s resolutions. Address the following items and act upon them!!!!

Real Estate Issues:
1. Make sure you have a Homestead Declaration in place. The new legislation adopted in March 2011 very much liberalized the availability of the Homestead and clarified issues which were not clear under prior law. Among other things, the new law clarified the fact that a person only needs to file the Homestead declaration once. If there are subsequent refinance transactions, the prior Homestead will continue in place. So, the Homestead is a “one-shot” not very expensive option. There are really not many reasons not to have one.

2. Consider carefully the legal effect of the title to your home.

a. If you are married, and do not own your home as “husband and wife, tenants by the entirety”, you are missing out on some great protection and an ability to avoid probate when one of you dies. Again, my thoughts on this are that there are not many situations where it does not make perfect sense to own your property in this manner.

b. If you own property with another who is not your spouse, it is important for you to enter into a written agreement which details what would happen if one owner dies, or wishes to sell. Many great friendships, and family ties, have been destroyed because people did not take the time, when there were no problems, to make provision for what to do when there are problems.

c. Consider placing your investment property into a nominee trust or a limited liability company. These are well-accepted forms of ownership, and there are liability and other advantages which owning investment property in this manner presents.

Estate Planning Issues:
1. Make sure your will and other estate planning documents are up to date. Many of you have wills and other estate planning documents which were executed many years ago. Take a new look at these documents. Do they reflect your current wishes concerning your assets? Are the people you designated as fiduciaries still available to so serve? Do you need to put the “right people” in place? In the internet age, changing your estate plan is easily effected. Think about what you have now. Is it what you want?

2. Take advantage of the changes in estate tax laws to make family gifts. Quite unexpectedly, President Obama raised the estate tax exemption to $5,000,000 per person until no later than December 31, 2012. This gives people opportunities to make family gifts of substantial amounts. Such gifts may be all the more welcome to your children and grandchildren who may be struggling to pay household and education expenses. There is also the $13,000 per donee per year annual exclusion which can be particularly useful if you have many children or many grandchildren. Consult you accountant, or other financial advisor, regarding how this exclusion may help you.

(Mr. Topkins is an attorney with Topkins & Bevans, Braintree Executive Park, 150 Grossman Dr., Braintree, MA 02184. His blog can be found at http://realtorsresourceblog.com. His telephone number is 617/596-3184 and his e-mail address in etopkins@topbev.com.)