Avoiding Massachusetts Income Tax with an Out-of-State Trust – SCOTUS Update

Here’s a great development for those who seek favorable tax treatment – Massachusetts beneficiaries no longer have to pay state income tax for trusts based in other states. Sort of. In a recent case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, a New York-based trust challenged the North Carolina Department of Revenue’s ability to collect of […]

Powerball Privacy Protection – Forming a Massachusetts Lottery Trust

With a record $1.5 Billion prize on the horizon for tomorrow’s Powerball draw, we’re naturally cashing in on the action with this timely article about forming a Massachusetts lottery trust. A lottery trust is a simple instrument, really, designed simply to preserve anonymity for the lottery winner. And for anyone who’d like to avoid hearing […]

Should I Place My Home and Assets Into a Revocable or Irrevocable Trust?

Reasons and foundations for creating trusts date as far back as Ancient Rome. But even under modern U.S. legal structure, the trust is still one of the most important innovations in property law. So it is natural that we frequently use trusts in estate plans for our Massachusetts clients. To begin with, trusts are advance […]

Prepaid Funeral Arrangements on Cape Cod – Saving Unnecessary Heartache

As estate & business planning attorneys here on Cape Cod, we are telling clients almost every day the importance of having  a Will, Massachusetts Health Care Proxy and Durable General Power of Attorney. These documents very simply lay out the basic rules for just about any kind of unexpected, unplanned, and unfortunate event in an […]

Massachusetts Advance Directives – What is the Law? Part 1 of 3

There is much confusion and misunderstanding about the various types of Advanced Directives, Medical Orders and when each can or cannot be used. This article will attempt to identify and define the various types of Advanced Directives currently in use in Massachusetts and help the reader understand their options when considering advance directives for themselves […]

The New Massachusetts Pet Trust | Ensuring Your Animals are Cared for Part 1

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been very busy over the past few years overhauling much of its probate code to reflect modern family circumstances. With respect to traditional estate planning, for example, the code changes Massachusetts estate distribution to ensure that all children in mixed marriage families receive some inheritance (if no will is present). […]

Why Avoid Probate? | Cape Cod Probate & Estate Law

One of our first articles outlined the ways that our clients in Massachusetts and on Cape can avoid probate. In fact, avoiding probate is one of the most frequent goals we hear when first meeting with clients. But the information gap we encounter most seems to be that clients don’t understand the reasons behind avoiding […]

Estate Planning in Sandwich & Cape Cod Towns | Massachusetts Estate Tax Planning

Clients seeking an estate plan from a Cape Cod attorney come to us often because they live locally, and they know that we understand the added complexities of Cape Cod estate plans. That complexity is, in a word (or two), real estate. While many other estates in communities around Massachusetts will certainly have the family […]

How to Name a Personal Representative of a Will – 3 Tips to Unburden the Family

Recently, a personal representative client of ours reached yet another exasperating obstacle in an already long and drawn out process. To begin with, the estate was comprised of several small life insurance accounts, each of which required a great deal of time, effort and paperwork to surrender. Fortunately, because of the estate’s relatively low total […]