There are a lot of parents out there who have not named       
guardians for their kids because they really can’t decide.

You might be one of them.

But, here’s the thing. If you don’t decide and something happens to you, the decision gets made by a Judge.

You don’t want that, do you?

Here’s a few things that may help you decide:

1.  Think through on a practical, realistic and non-emotional (to the extent you can) level who would come forward to raise your kids if you were in an accident.

2.  Is that who you would want to raise your kids?

3.  If not, who would be better than that person or those people?

4.  If more than one person would come forward, who         
would a Judge pick if the Judge had to decide between all
the people who would come forward?

Bottom line? 

If you don’t decide, a Judge will. Even your worst choice would be better than that, right?

The free KidsProtectionPlan.com website will walk you through the entire process of choosing the right guardians for your kids and then legally document your decisions.

If not knowing who you want to name has been holding you back, don’t let it hold you back a second longer.

Do it now. It’s Free. It’s Easy. No Excuses.

Ok, so there’s no contract yet.  But, all signs are  pointing    
to me getting a TV show of some kind.

Crazy, huh?!?

Well, not so crazy. The truth of the matter is that it’s what I’ve always wanted.

But, until last year, I wasn’t really willing to admit it to myself (or anyone else).  It was always something that existed in the back of mind, but I was too scared to really let myself feel that’s what I wanted because it was my deepest heart’s desire and if I admitted that and then didn’t get it, I’d be crushed.

Well, last year, I finally decided enough of that!  I’m going to start being really honest with myself and letting in the truth of what I really want in life. 

And now, I’m in talks with TWO networks about my own TV show. 

See, that’s what happens when you own up to what you really want even though it’s super scary! The Universe provides.  Read more about being afraid and doing it anyway on my personal blog.

In the meantime, if you haven’t named guardians for your kids yet because you just can’t decide who to name, make sure to read this week’s article.

With Love,

Legal agreements are so boring, aren’t they? And, if you are like most people, you are making a lot of deals in life without documenting those deals. I always give people the benefit of the doubt and trust, so I do it myself. And, I’m a lawyer!

That means, if I do it, you do it too. 

But, having an agreement isn’t about not trusting someone. It’s about knowing that you’re on the same page. You might think you both agreed to something when in reality you thought one thing and they thought something else.

When you have an agreement in place, that risk is minimized.

Below are some real life examples (including one from my own life) of how putting it in writing can actually increase the likelihood of success for whatever you are doing, whether it’s personal or business related. And I’ve got some easy tips for creating your own legal agreements.

I recently hired a live-in nanny/house manager. She’s great and she’s saving my sanity. She worked with me for about 6 weeks and everything was great.

Then, things started getting not so great. Not bad, but I noticed little things starting to slip through the cracks - meals not ready on time, cats food bowls not refilled, not waking up on time a couple of times. Things like that.  Little things, really. 

But, enough of these little things could add up to unhappiness and resentment.  So, I wrote up an agreement. 

It’s a simple agreement that spells out my expectations. (If you want to see it, post a comment on the blog with your email address and I’ll send it to you.) You are more than welcome to use it as a basis for your own agreement.

I emailed it to her and let her know I wanted her input on it as well.  It’s an agreement, meaning we both need to agree to what’s included. We sat down together, went over each of the points, and we each signed it.  Simple. And, it fleshed out some places we were not on the same page, which could have become a problem later.

Here are some other situations in which you want to have written agreements:

• Buying property with another person
• Hiring an employee or an independent contractor (in fact, if they are an independent contractor, an agreement is even more important because otherwise you are at risk of them being reclassified as an employee, which means you owe all sorts of back taxes)
• Getting married
• Having a baby
• Starting a business
• Buying a business
• Moving in together
• Subletting your house
• Contracting for services
• Hiring a handyman or contractor 

My baby started Kindergarten this week. Now,
I’ve got two kids in school full-time and at the same place, what a relief!

Not to mention all the amazing things that are starting to happen.  Right before I left for Burning Man, I got a call from producers at CNBC that they wanted me to appear on the show “On the Money” with Carmen Wong Ulrich.
 
I was so excited. The only problem was that I was going to be in Burning Man, so I had to turn it down. They said they were willing to wait for me.
 
I appeared last week and they’ve already asked me back for another show and invited me to NYC for a development meeting.  I don’t know exactly what that means, but whatever it means, I’m psyched!

Plus, I’m pitching a reality show and can’t believe how fast everything is moving with that.  It’s Hollywood though, so it may be another few years before anything really happens.

But, it’s all happenning!

With Love,

As of your 18th birthday, you became an adult in the eyes of the law.

Even though your kids may still act like teenagers (or you may feel like one), in the eyes of the government, turning 18 means you need to have legal documents in place in case of an accident. 

Every adult should have in place an Advance Health Care Directive and a Financial Durable Power of Attorney.  Estate planning is not just for rich people.  These legal documents are important for everyone who loves their family.

If you don’t have these legal documents in place and something scary happens, it will make life a whole lot more difficult for the people you love.

An Advance Health Care Directive (also known as a living will) does two things:  first, it names the person you want making health care decisions for you if you cannot make them for yourself and second, it lets that person know how you want them to be made.
 
This is important because if you are in the hospital and cannot communicate, you need someone to make decisions for you and you want them to make those decisions as you would want them made, without question.

If you don’t have this document in place, it could create a huge rift among your family as the people you love fight about what you would have wanted.

The important thing in this document is that the whoever you name is also given authority under the new (within the past three years) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (aka HIPAA).
 
If your health care agent (the person named in your Advance Health Care Directive) is not designated as your agent under HIPAA, they will not be able to look at your medical records, which makes it mighty hard for them to make health care decisions for you.

By the way, if you have college age kids going off to college, you’ll want to get this in place for your kid.  Otherwise, when you call the school nurse to discuss your child’s illness, you may find no one can or will talk with you because they would violate HIPAA if they did.
  
We get frantic calls in our office at least once or twice each fall from parents looking for legal documents for their college-age kid for just this reason.

The second legal document you absolutely need to have in place as an adult is a Durable Power of Attorney. This document names someone to make financial and legal decisions for you if you can’t make them for yourself.

Beware of the one-page standard durable power of attorney you find on the internet where you just check off a list of applicable powers.  I’ve seen family members try to use those to access their loved ones assets and then not be able to because the form was too generic.

It’s important for your kids going off to college to have this in place too because if they are in an accident you are going to need to take over paying the bills and get access to bank accounts and make legal decisions.  But, you will have to go through a long and expensive court process if there’s not a signed Durable Power of Attorney in place.

It’s the same for you too. If you are in an accident, and you don’t have a Durable Power of Attorney in place,it will be difficult for your family to deal with things on your behalf.

So, regardless of the amount of money you have in the bank, get your Advance Health Care Directive (or living will) and your Durable Power of Attorney in place at the bare minimum.  Oh, and of course, if you have kids under 18 at home, get your comprehensive Kids Protection Plan in place too. 

None of this has to do with money. It has to do with making life as easy as possible for the people you love.

Jim Guzy’s a smart guy.  He was Intel’s longest running director and thanks to Intel holdings built up a sizable fortune. 

And, he had smart estate planning lawyers who established a Family Limited Partnership (FLP.) to hold his Intel stock (called Arbor) to save estate taxes at his death.  This is a common estate planning strategy used to do “tax magic” and make assets look smaller than there are for estate tax purposes using “valuation discounts”.

When done right, it’s an effective strategy and can save a family hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in taxes.

When done wrong, a Family Limited Partnership can be a disaster.  In past years, Family Limited Partnerships have been overturned by the IRS when they are not operated and maintained properly. 

What happened to the Guzy family is far worse.  The FLP set up by Guzy has become the center of a huge family feud that started with Guzy suing his wife for investing in one of their son’s business ventures using FLP assets and has devolved into multiple cross lawsuits by 3 of the children against their parents and a family deeply divided.

Before setting up any kind of an estate or tax plan, it’s critical to understand the underlying family relationships that are involved and not let the tax tail wag the family dog.

Guzy’s plan required him to gift small amounts of the Arbor FLP to his kids (that’s how the tax magic is created) and they decided they wanted their share before he died.

While it may look like pure greed on the part of the kids, all is probably not as it seems.  From reading between the lines, it looks like one of the sons was forced to sue his parents for his share by a bankruptcy judge after he filed for bankruptcy.  (See Guzy v. Guzy and Guzy v. the Arbor Co.).

This is one of the perils of giving away assets to a child before they are ready.  And, why we never give assets outright and always use irrevocable trusts designed to prevent just this sort of thing from happening.

Even with that though, sometimes you just have to say no to fancy estate tax planning, putting the family dynamics ahead of the tax savings.

I recently had a client in my office and we were planning on establishing irrevocable trusts for the benefit of his Wife, but after talking through some of the issues (like the fact that it was irrevocable), he’s decided to wait until we can work through some deep-seated financial/emotional issues that can either destroy their marriage or bring them closer together and put them on the same team.  Sure, we could save him a bunch on estate taxes, but if it ruins his life while he’s living, I haven’t done my job.  It’s too bad the Guzy’s lawyers didn’t think about this before putting in place a fancy estate tax plan that has torn the Guzy family to pieces.