Philadelphia Family Law and Estate Planning Legal Blog

When a person takes up a sport, any sport, one of the key elements of success is learning and honing the fundamentals. Nearly every endeavor in life starts this way. 

In Pennsylvania estate planning, creating a will stands as the widely recognized fundamental first step. Considering that this is the tool for distributing assets to your heirs, it can feel like you have accomplished a lot if you just get that one thing done. Too often, individuals pull generic documents from the Internet, fill them out, and think that covers their bases. Those with experience in this area know drafting and executing a will involves much more. The devil is in the details.

The right of nearly all adults to marry in Pennsylvania is a matter of law and has been since 2014, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. That does not mean that all existing walls of discrimination against same-sex couples have come tumbling down. Four years later, headlines claiming alleged discrimination still abound.

Just last month, the city of Philadelphia announced a decision to suspend city funding to two faith-based foster care agencies because they refused to work with LGBT individuals or couples desiring to become foster parents.

Readers may be aware of the fairly recent news involving the estate of singer Whitney Houston. According to reports citing court documents in the case, attorneys for the estate won a significant victory by reaching an agreement with the IRS to pay $2 million in taxes. The IRS had sought $11 million, alleging that the estate had undervalued the worth of certain Houston assets such as royalties, residuals and the value of her name. A term that applies to many of the items on that list is "intangible assets".

The Houston case and others like it reflect the challenge that intangible assets held by individuals and businesses can present in terms of solid estate planning and probate litigation in Pennsylvania.

Who needs an estate plan? I don't have an estate.

Sadly, this is a widely held misconception, which is why the topic comes up so often in forums such as this post.

The truth is that an estate can be made up of all sorts of things. Big-ticket items, such as your primary residence, your vacation home, a boat or car, count. But small things with sentimental value deserve to be counted as well. Things such as a deceased loved one's wedding or engagement ring and photographs that have special significance can have value And where value is attached, there's reason to include it in an estate plan.