Last Friday, the New Jersey Hospital Association and the state of New Jersey released a new form known as Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment. The form enables terminal patients to decide, together with their families, the type of end-of-life treatment...
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Ridgewood Estate Planning Blog
Law prevents children of “slayer spouse” from inheriting
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Feb 23, 2013 | Probate
It makes a good movie plot: the beneficiary of a wealthy relative devising a well thought out murder sure to never be solved. Yet this isn't just the stuff fiction is made of.In one recent case, a vacationing couple went scuba diving. Yet only the husband surfaced. He...
Living trust has benefits
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Feb 22, 2013 | Trusts
Establishing a revocable living trust can prove wise, according to one estate planning attorney. What is a revocable living trust? It's a living trust established with your own assets and under your terms. It can be changed or terminated at any time before your...
Durable power of attorney ensure your finances will be properly managed
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Feb 15, 2013 | Estate Planning
According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.4 million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease. The disease, which affects one in eight older Americans, can eventually make it impossible for sufferers to manage their finances, but even milder cognitive impairments can...
Doing asset protection planning? Do it right, don’t rush in.
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Feb 14, 2013 | Asset Protection
Asset protection is an important discipline used in conjunction with estate planning which employs various strategies to ensure that one's wealth is not unnecessarily at risk of being depleted. Many people benefit from doing a little, or a lot, of asset protection....
Estate planning for singles
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Feb 7, 2013 | Estate Planning
Often, some of the trickiest estate planning conundrums come from people who have many assets and a large, complex family. These people often find that they need to carefully utilize several different estate planning tools in order to ensure that their assets are...
Disinheriting a relative: The ins and outs
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Feb 5, 2013 | Estate Planning
Contrary to popular belief, disinheriting someone-- that is, removing them from a will-- is not necessarily an act of betrayal or hatred. In fact, disinheriting relatives is surprisingly common, and it happens for a number of reasons. Some New Jersey parents, for...
Death at X-Games highlights need for estate planning when young
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Feb 2, 2013 | Estate Planning
A 25-year-old participating in last week's ESPN's X-Games suffered fatal injuries in a sustained crash while attempting a trick by snowmobile. The crash and the severity of the complications that arose from it highlight the extreme dangers that young people are often...
New Jersey residents face estate and inheritance taxes
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Jan 31, 2013 | Inheritance And Estate Tax
The recent fiscal cliff tax deal, as we've previously noted, indefinitely extended the $5 million per person estate tax exemption amount. The exemption, indexed for inflation, is now at 45.25 million. That's pretty generous, and makes it so that many people don't have...
Wealthy families can still tweak last minute estate plans from 2012, P.2
On Behalf of The Manna Helmy Law Group | Jan 29, 2013 | Estate Planning
In our previous post, we began to discuss the topic of leaving wealth to children. Specifically, we were speaking about people who took last minutes steps in 2012 to make gifts to children to take advantage of the high estate tax exemption, which has now become...