Art and Other Collections in an Estate Plan

Are you a collector? Is your collection included in your estate plan?
Are you a collector? Is your collection included in your estate plan?

Many people have collections about which they are quite passionate: The collections may be very valuable, for example, art collections, coins, stamps, or designer handbags, or they may have more sentimental than monetary value, such as political bumper stickers, postcards, or rocks. Regardless of its dollar value, if you have a collection, it should be included in your estate plan. You should make arrangements in advance to ensure that it is handled in the way you want, and if it is worth a lot of money, that its value is maximized. The following are a few steps you should take to ensure your wishes for your collection are followed:

Collect relevant documentation. If you have a valuable collection, it is important to create a catalog describing each piece, including photographs, bills of sale, and appraisals. If you have an insurance policy covering some or all of the items, it should be kept with your important documents as well.

Discuss your collection with your family members and loved ones. Although you may have invested a lot of time and money in your collection, and may have a strong emotional attachment to it, it is not unusual for family members not to share your passion about your collection. Try to understand their perspective if this is the case in your family. It is important to discuss this with them to ensure that your estate plan is designed to minimize the burden your family could face in dealing with the collection when you pass away. However, it is also important to find out from your family members if anyone would like to inherit certain pieces or the collection as a whole. If more than one person would like to receive certain items, it is prudent to figure out a reasonable solution in advance. This will help to avoid conflict between family members after you pass away.

Pass it on to loved ones. If you do pass your collection to family members, consider giving them your permission to sell or donate it. If one or more family members is interested in keeping it, consider whether to also provide a cash gift to help those beneficiaries with the costs of maintaining it. If the collection is one of your more valuable assets, take steps to ensure that other beneficiaries receive an equivalent inheritance, for example, by making them the beneficiaries of a life insurance policy. Alternatively, you could consider transferring your entire collection to a trust or a limited liability company that could manage the collection for the benefit of multiple generations.

Donate your collection to a museum or charitable organization. It is important to check with the organization to which you plan to donate the collection to make sure that it is able to handle housing or selling it, both of which could involve more expense than you might expect. Such organizations may request that a donation of cash accompany the bequest to offset the cost of maintaining the collection. Keep in mind that only a donation to a public charity will be tax deductible by your estate (or you, if you make a lifetime gift), and there are certain circumstances when even donations to a public charity will not be deductible.

Sell the collection. If you would like your family to sell your collection or anticipate that they will sell it, it will be helpful to them and likely minimize delays if you provide the names of dealers or auction companies that specialize in the type of collection you have, as this type of information may not be as easy to find for those who are not collectors. To prevent the collection from being sold for much less than its actual value, consider appointing an executor who is knowledgeable about it and its value.

Consider the tax implications. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 lowered the maximum capital gains rate on gains from the sale of most assets to 20 percent but left the maximum rate on gains from the sale of collectibles at 28 percent. If you pass your collection on to a child or other beneficiary when you pass away, that person will have a tax basis in the property based on the value on the date of your death (i.e., a stepped-up basis). This will be the basis used to determine the amount of taxable gain and income tax the beneficiary must pay if the beneficiary eventually sells some or all of the items in the collection. As a result, if your collection has increased in value over time, your beneficiary’s tax bill will be lower if you wait until your death to gift the collection to them rather than making a lifetime gift—in that case, their basis would be the amount you originally paid, resulting in a larger taxable gain. On the other hand, if the collection has not increased in value, you could consider taking advantage of the annual or lifetime gift tax exclusions to make outright gifts of your collection while you are still living.

Make sure it is properly valued. Appraisals are particularly important, as they will help your executor, trustee, and family members determine the value of the collection. Be sure to use an appraiser knowledgeable about the particular type of items in your collection. This will ensure that these items are not sold for a price far below their actual worth or donated because of a lack of knowledge of their true value. Also, it will help you to make decisions about how to provide equitable gifts to your beneficiaries and whether to make gifts from your collection during your life or at death.

Finding Help to Design an Estate Plan for Your Special Collection

Your collection likely means a lot to you. It also adds another level of complexity to your estate plan. An experienced estate planning attorney can help you think through your goals and develop an estate plan that will allow you to rest assured that your collection will be handled according to your wishes after you pass away.

You may also be interested in https://galligan-law.com/when-to-update-your-estate-plan/.

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Will vs Living Trust: A Quick and Simple Reference Guide

Which is better for you? A will or a revocable living trust?
Which is better for you? A will or a revocable living trust?

Confused about the differences between a will and a living trust?  If so, you are not alone. While it is always wise to contact an estate planning attorney to help you decide which is right for you, it is also important to understand the basics. Here is a quick and simple reference guide:

What a Revocable Living Trust Can Do – That a Will Cannot

  • Avoid guardianship. A revocable living trust allows you to name your spouse, partner, child, or other trusted person to manage your money and property, that has been properly transferred to the trust, should you become unable to manage your own affairs. A will only becomes effective when you die, so a will is useless in avoiding  guardianship proceedings during your life.
  • Bypass probate. Accounts and property in a revocable living trust do not go through probate to be delivered to their intended recipients. Accounts and property that pass using a will guarantees probate. The probate process, designed to wrap up a person’s affairs after satisfying outstanding debts, is public and can be costly and time consuming.
  • Maintain privacy after death. A will is a public document; a trust is not. Anyone, including nosey neighbors, predators, and the unscrupulous can discover what you owned and who is receiving the items if you have a will. A trust allows you to maintain your loved ones’ privacy after death.
  • Protect you from court challenges. Although court challenges to wills and trusts occur, attacking a trust is generally much harder than attacking a will. If there is a challenge to a will, the probate court will stop all proceedings until the matter is resolved, which can put the will contestant in the very strong position of demanding to be paid to go away. Because there is no probate court involvement is no necessary in the administration of a trust, challenging a trust does not result in everything grinding to a halt. This puts the trust contestant at a disadvantage and removes the leverage the contestant would have had in probate court. For other ways on how to avoid conflict over your estate after you pass away, see https://galligan-law.com/how-to-avoid-family-fighting-in-my-estate/.

What Both a Will & Trust Can Do:

  • Allow revisions to your document. Both a will and revocable living trust can be revised whenever your intentions or circumstances change so long as you have the mental ability to understand the changes you are making. (WARNING: There is such as a thing as irrevocable trusts, which cannot be changed without legal action. Irrevocable trusts are different estate planning tools from a revocable trust, which is what we are talking about here.)
  • Name beneficiaries. Both a will and trust are vehicles which allow you to name who you want to receive your accounts and property. A will simply describes the accounts and property and states who gets what. Only accounts and property in your individual name will be controlled by a will. If an account or piece of property has a beneficiary, pay-on-death, or transfer-on-death designation, this will trump whatever is listed in your will. While a trust acts similarly, you must go one step further and “transfer” the property into the trust or name the trust as beneficiary of your property and financial accounts – commonly referred to as “funding.” This is accomplished by changing the ownership of your accounts and property from your name individually to the name of the trust or by naming the trust as beneficiary of the property or account. Only accounts and property in the name of your trust  or designating your trust as beneficiary will be controlled by the trust’s instructions.
  • Provide asset protection. Both a trust and a will may include protective sub-trusts which can allow your beneficiaries to receive some enjoyment and benefit from the accounts and property in the trust but also keep the accounts and property from being seized by your beneficiaries’ creditors such as divorcing spouses, car accident litigants, bankruptcy trustees, and business failures.

While some of the differences between a will and living trust are subtle; others are not. An estate planning attorney can work with you to help you determine which is better for you, a will or a revocable living trust, so that you end up with an estate plan personalized to your needs.

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Covid 19 and Minor Children – Things to Consider Now

It's important to have a plan in place to take care of your minor children, if you are unable to do so yourself.
It’s important to have a plan in place to take care of your minor children, if you are unable to do so yourself.

Protecting your family is important, especially when you have minor children, and even more so now that we are living through a pandemic. With all of the unknowns of our current situation, you need some certainty. Having an up-to-date estate plan can be the first step toward providing that certainty in an uncertain world.

Many people view estate planning as limited to making arrangements for your death. However, it is equally important to plan for a time when you may still be alive but unable to care for yourself or your minor children.

Addressing the financial needs of you and your minor child

A revocable living trust can be a great solution for managing your and your minor child’s financial needs during incapacity. This planning tool enables you to name yourself as the trustee (the person or institution charged with managing, investing, and handing out the money and property) and allows you to continue exercising control over the money and property you transferred to the trust. The accounts and property are transferred to the trust when you change the legal ownership from you as an individual to you as the trustee of the trust. A trust also allows you to name a co-trustee or an alternate trustee to seamlessly step in, without court involvement, and manage the trust’s money and property for your benefit and the benefit of any other beneficiaries you have named in your trust if you become too ill to do it yourself.

In addition, when using a trust, you can specify when and how the funds should be used for your minor child’s benefit. You can provide instructions for certain expenses to be paid during a period of incapacity to ensure that your minor child is still being provided for in the same way you would provide for your child. Additionally, you can include a plan for how the money will be used upon your death for your child’s benefit. You can also state a time frame for when you think your child would be ready to manage his or her inheritance. Until the child reaches that age, the child’s inheritance will be managed by the trustee you choose. It’s important that you provide your child’s trustee with guidelines on what is important to you in terms of taking care of your child financially. If you leave your child’s inheritance to your child in a trust, the funds will be better protected from any future creditors or a divorcing spouse that your child may have.

An added benefit of utilizing a trust as part of your estate plan is avoiding the time-consuming and often expensive probate process that would otherwise be required. As long as you properly transfer your accounts and property to the trust, or make arrangements for the trust to be named beneficiary of your assets at your death, you will save your loved ones precious time and money during an emotional period.

Caring for your minor child

When planning for minor children, it is also important to consider who will physically care for them if you are unable to. If your minor child’s other legal parent is still alive and able to care for the child, the other parent will continue to provide care or will assume the day-to-day responsibilities of the caregiver. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to plan for what will happen if both of you are unable to care for the minor child, just in case. If you are the only living parent, or if the other legal parent is unfit to care for your child, however, it is crucial that you make the proper arrangements. While most people are familiar with the idea of naming a guardian for a minor child in a last will and testament, this document does not become effective until your death. Therefore, to properly plan for your minor child’s care during your incapacity, you need to consider naming a guardian in a separate writing.

Providing for your minor child’s care and financial security is an important undertaking with many important questions to consider. An estate planning attorney can guide you in making those crucial decisions and can put together a plan that will see that your wishes are carried out.

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