Author: Patricia De Fonte – Estate Planning Attorney
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Is your revocable trust a ticking time bomb?
Will Your Pre-2011 Trust Create expensive problems for your surviving spouse and children? A revocable trust written before 2011 might contain provisions that would cause the trust’s beneficiaries expensive tax problems. Why? To avoid federal estate tax on the first death, many older trusts have an AB formula with a bypass trust. These made sense…
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Estate Planning Decisions Come From The Heart
I was recently asked to “submit my elevator pitch” in writing for a networking group. This is what I usually say when I introduce myself to a group of professionals: My name is Patricia De Fonte. No one ever wants to start working with me. It is not easy to tell a stranger about strained…
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Families Belong Together
The core of my business is working with parents to protect their children. Some of my clients are wealthy and want to ensure that their children are not “spoiled” by an inheritance at any age. Some of my clients live month to month and the only asset is a life insurance policy meant to cover…
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Don’t Unintentionally Disinherit Your Child
Leaving Your Assets to a Trusted Adult to Care for Your Child is a Mistake I recently met with a potential client who had created his estate plan just after his son was born. He had every intention of taking care of his son. But this trust cut his son out of the picture: 70…
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How to provide for loved ones who cannot or should not inherit from you
Loving people can mean taking good care of them, taking responsibility for them. In some estate-planning situations, the responsible thing to do is to make provisions, but not necessarily leave an inheritance. Many of us have family members who struggle with addiction. Assets or cash can often cause harm and in some cases may even…