Anthony S. Park

When one of the heirs won’t leave the family home, what can you do? It’s a pretty common situation. For example, mom passes away leaving three adult children. One adult son was living with her when she passed away, and he doesn’t want to leave. Why heir won’t leave The top reason is pretty straightforward: it’s like having free or reduced rent. Sometimes there’s the feeling of entitlement. As in,...

The Netflix movie, “ I Care a Lot ,” shows a nightmare scenario for Solo Agers. It is a dramatization of what could potentially happen to our Solo Ager friends. Below we’ll separate 7 myths from reality in this movie. Spoiler alert! If you want to watch the movie first, then save this blog to read after you’ve seen the movie. We’ll be discussing mostly just the first 30 minutes of the movie (the s...

Think it’s over? Even when most of probate is complete, the executor must hold a reserve. Why keep a reserve? Think of it as a rainy-day fund: An amount of money that the executor holds on to in order to pay unexpected expenses. Even after more than a year, unexpected things pop up - even with experienced attorneys involved. It’s impossible to have full certainty of what the final bills are for th...

Should executors send funds by check or wire? This could apply to expenses or payments to the heirs at the end. As a professional executor , I’ll explain why we almost never send wires, only checks. Successful checks vs wires If everything goes well, wire transfers are faster (even faster than overnight checks). Wires are more convenient for the recipients since they don't have to go to a bank to...

Waiting for tax clearance is often the biggest delay in closing an estate. We’ll explain why tax clearance is so important and why it takes so long. Why tax clearance is so important No one wants IRS problems under any circumstances. In estates, the IRS is a top priority creditor. They need to get paid before anyone else gets paid. It’s important to know the final figures for the IRS before distri...

About six months ago, the court chose a court-appointed stranger for “Ms. H.,” a lovely solo ager who has named me executor in her will. In this episode, we are going to check in and see what’s happened since then. To refresh, Ms. H. is unmarried with no kids and is somewhat estranged from her nieces and nephews. Ms. H. named me as executor in her will many years ago. She recently rekindled a rela...

If you have a non-US decedent, here are some documents that you’ll most likely need to get translated. Sometimes clients and also foreign attorneys approach us to explain to them what needs to be done. Funeral bill The court wants to see the funeral bill and whether it was paid in full. They need to know who gets reimbursed for the cost. This is important because the funeral home is a top-priority...

Sometimes, as professional executor, I must be a (reluctant) house flipper. Why reluctant? It looks so fun and glamorous on TV shows! Renovating means time, money, and risk for the estate. That is not great for an executor. An executor’s job is to preserve value, pay creditors, and get whatever is left over into the hand of the heirs as soon as possible. I prefer to sell as quickly as possible, bu...

Clients often call asking us why their probate case is taking so long. Probate usually takes a while, but lately, it has become an even longer process. We will discuss three current, real-world situations to help you understand what your case might be taking longer than you thought. Is there a backlog for probate? As is the case for any bureaucracy (especially government), due to COVID/lockdowns,...

As a Solo Ager, choosing who inherits from you is something you should think about. Should it be the person who was there the most at the end? Or someone who had more of a life-long relationship with the decedent? Which relative should inherit? You can be a Solo Ager and still have siblings, nieces, and nephews, etc. Should the person who inherits your estate be that lifelong “favorite” niece or n...

We all know siblings who are constantly competing or comparing with each other. Let’s talk about how those rivalries cause problems during probate. Which sibling inherits more? If there is any slight imbalance of inheritance amounts , there’s an issue of who was the favorite. Or maybe it’s an issue of who took care of mom or dad at the end of life. Maybe there is compensation or gratitude for whoe...

Let’s answer a crypto question from Haille: How does crypto transfer on death? We’ve covered this topic in episodes 214, Transferring Bitcoin Upon Death , and E222, Beneficiary Designations for Cryptocurrency Exchanges, but we’re happy to answer Hallie’s specific questions here. Is the will required to be probated if the beneficiary of the will has access to the Coinbase holder's account? Yes, to...

Death, family, and money are always an emotional mix. And those emotions can lead to headaches and expensive problems during probate. How to clean out house after death In general, the clean-out can be an emotional and cathartic process as people journey down memory lane. But in our case, the daughters are from out of state. They had limited time to just tag items for the executor to keep or trash...

Sometimes the biggest problem in probate is the people, specifically when there are too many people involved. When there are too many lawyers You may be wondering: “Why would anyone want too many lawyers involved?” Sometimes there are situations where everyone lawyers-up: the executor has his, the heirs each have their own, and so on. We recently had a situation where two of the heirs had multiple...

In this episode, we bring you a real-world story of “Ms. H.,” who got a court-appointed stranger guardian instead of her family or her own attorney. This a cautionary tale for anyone who is dragging their feet on getting their planning done. Why Ms. H. needs a guardian Ms. H. is a Solo Ager . (For those of you who are new here, a Solo Ager is someone who is getting on in years and is unmarried or...

Unlike real estate, most people (including heirs and executors) have never owned a business, let alone sold one . So, when it comes up in an estate probate, understandably , folks are lost . We have a recent estate example, which included a retail business. 1. How to secure the business location Vacant storefronts can attract crime, vandals, and the homeless. Just like when you go out of town , ma...

Casa is really becoming a leader in Bitcoin estate planning and custody solutions. They recently launched their version of beneficiary designations for cryptocurrency, and I’m really hopeful about this . I think this is something that needs to be in place, because there is always the risk of catastrophic loss. So, let’s take a look. How Casa Beneficiary works You start by naming a beneficiary on y...

Sometimes the estate doesn’t have cash on hand and only has illiquid assets like the home, a business, or artwork. But settling the estate has many ongoing bills and expenses , from court fees to movers to accountants . We’ll discuss 3 ways to deal with cash-poor, illiquid estates. Can the heirs pay? Sure - If the heirs have the funds, they can “lend” money to the estate to keep things moving. For...

The following are three recent questions from our Solo Ager listeners. Thanks for your questions! Is a bank as an executor better? This question comes from a Solo Ager who listened to our previous podcast episode 221 , where we discussed whether executors are contractually bound to serve . Our listener asks, “since professional executors are not contractually bound, aren’t banks better ?” The shor...

You probably don’t want to burden your kids or family with your debt when you die. Here, we’ll cover the ins and outs of debt and death, including an overview of what happens to your debt when you die and how to handle an estate with debt. We’ll also cover when heirs do not inherit debt (with some exceptions), and why debt collectors keep calling heirs. Lastly, I’ll explain how your heirs can turn...

When someone passes away and you are in charge, one of the top priorities is securing the house. In order to do this, you need to start with the following five steps. 1. Take care of the lights, mail, etc. to keep criminals from thinking the house is vacant. Use automatic lights and don’t let mail or newspapers pile up on the porch. Just think about things you might do when going on a long vacatio...

America’s favorite billionaire Warren Buffet has said “ All things considered, the third best investment I ever made was the purchase of my home …” We’ll compare homeownership to investing, and we need baseline assumptions to understand the comparisons. Over a lifetime, your mortgage payments, taxes/maintenance (including amortized capital costs) will equal roughly similar housing for free-market...