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Showing posts from 2020

Cheated Out of an Inheritance? Better Stay on Your Toes If You Want to File a Lawauit.

As I discuss in more detail on the post on my Iowa probate blog , a recent ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court significantly changes the time period in which to bring a lawsuit for interference with inheritance.  In short: don't wait very long .

Protection for Elders in Iowa From Financial Exploitation

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What is "elder abuse"? As provided in Iowa Code 235F , elder abuse means any of the following: 1.      Physical injury to, unreasonable confinement, punishment or assault of a vulnerable elder 2.      Sexual offense with or against a vulnerable elder 3.      Neglect by a caretaker of a vulnerable elder a.      Includes the deprivation of the minimum food, shelter, clothing, supervision, or physical or mental health care necessary to maintain life or health 4.      Financial exploitation of a vulnerable elder. Who is considered a vulnerable elder? A vulnerable elder means a person sixty years of age or older who is unable to protect himself or herself from elder abuse as a result of age or a mental or physical condition or because of a personal circumstance which results in an increased risk of harm to the person. Did you know that the elderly poor are at greater risk of financial exploitation than the wealthy? Many low-income older Iowans are financ

Probate Issues in Iowa Now a Separate Blog

Way back in 2009, or whenever I started this blog, I posted about probate topics as well as estate planning.  (I'm not sure I expected to be blogging still in 2020.  My dream of retiring at age 44 and retiring to a caribbean island just didn't materialize.)  Then one day I looked at the site address-Iowa Estate Plan--and decided maybe it made more sense to keep probate topics on one site and keep this as estate planning.  Plus, I purchased the Probate Iowa site and decided I should probably put something on it. There will always be some overlap between the topics, but with the convenience of a computer mouse and a click, you can easily maneuver back and forth to your heart's content. Check out Iowa Probate for posts about probate matters in Iowa.

COVID-19 and Suspension of Physical Presence for the Execution of Legal Documents

Each day gets crazier and crazier on COVID-19's impact on our society, including in the estate planning world.  Under Iowa long-standing law ( Iowa Code sec. 633.279 ), when an individual signs their will, it is required that they sign in the presence of two individuals.  This has been pretty strictly adhered to by Iowa courts in requiring the physical presence of the witnesses. Today, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds issued a proclamation suspending the requirement of physical presence of individuals witnessing the signing of wills and medical power of attorney documents provided that the signing takes place where the witnesses and individual can see and hear one another through electronic means, such as video conferencing. The other portion of the proclamation deals with the remote notarization of documents.   Technically, Iowa's remote notary law wasn't scheduled to take effect until July 1, 2020 so the Governor's proclamation essentially "fast tracked" the

Retirement Accounts and Conduit Trusts and SECURE Act. What Do I Need to Do???

The recent passage of the “ Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement” Act (SECURE Act) in December 2019 created some significant changes to retirement accounts.  One big change of SECURE resulted in changes to allowing what is commonly referred to as “stretch” IRA’s. Previously, beneficiaries such as children and grandchildren, were able to have funds withdrawn from an inherited retirement account over the rest of their expected life. That allowed younger beneficiaries to extend (or stretch) the IRA distributions over several years, or potentially decades for very young beneficiaries. The result was that the taxable income was spread over a long period of time that allowed the account to continue to grow (hopefully). With a few exceptions, the stretch IRA is no longer an option and funds from a traditional IRA/401k must be withdrawn within ten (10) years of your passing. Many clients incorporated provisions in your estate plan that used the “conduit” trust as a way