Bluffton South Carolina Estate Planning Law Blog

Ideally, South Carolina residents and others will develop and refine an estate plan that meets their current and future needs. In many cases, a plan will need to be reviewed and updated as life events such as a divorce or a death in the family take place. One of the primary mistakes a person can make when it comes to managing their assets is not having a plan at all.

At a minimum, a person should have a will and durable powers of attorney. The will dictates where assets go after an individual passes while the powers of attorney allow trusted individuals to make decisions on an incapacitated individual's behalf. If someone dies without a valid will or trust, assets will likely be allocated per state law. This means that an estranged parent or sibling could get a home, car or another item that was intended for someone else.

A revocable living trust can help individuals hold their assets. Some South Carolina residents who have a trust may wonder if they should use it to hold a 529 college savings account for a child's future education.

The answer really depends on the situation. If the creator would like to name a successor who will be responsible for the 529 account and they want to prevent the account from being subjected to probate, using a trust to hold college savings is not necessary. What the trust holder could do is name a successor. It is possible to do this on the beneficiary form that is provided by the sponsor of the 529 plan. When the account owner dies, the account will be passed on to the successor who was named and will not go through probate.

Audiences in South Carolina and elsewhere have been flocking to the movies to see the film "Knives Out," a creative take on a classic murder mystery featuring a cast packed with stars. The film has earned over $70 million at the box office with its take on the investigation of the death of an elderly, wealthy man. However, after people are done enjoying the film, they may wonder how closely the estate planning issues depicted in the movie compare to real-life concerns. The plot of the film involves determining who was responsible for a man's death as well as how his assets should be distributed.

A lawyer in "Knives Out" gathers family members and heirs together to hear an official reading of the will. While it makes a powerful dramatic device, there is no such procedure in real life. Instead, people will submit the will to probate court in their area for further proceedings. While the will reading is a fictional device, the next step in the film is all too common. If beneficiaries believe that the will was written under some kind of duress or was a fake altogether, they can contest the document in probate court.

People in South Carolina who have a revocable trust that they want to revoke should take certain steps to ensure that their wishes are carried out. For example, two parents wanted to cancel their revocable trust, in which they had placed their estate that was worth $2 million, and they wondered whether a handwritten letter of revocation would be sufficient.

It is unlikely that this would be the case. Although the parents were going through and removing all their assets from the trust, the trust was still mentioned in their wills. Furthermore, there is always the possibility that a person might forget to remove some assets or that a person might die before removing all the assets. In addition, an older will cannot be reactivated by revoking a later will. In most cases, it is necessary to create and sign a new will.