David Pyke here with a brief update on what is now known as the One Big Beautiful Act. You probably realize that this comprehensive tax package passed the Senate and the House and was signed into law by President Trump on July 4th. The most important aspect for me is how it impacts [...]
Hi, here’s a common question we get: Can my ex-spouse interfere with my estate? And the answer is, yes, they can. They can’t do it directly because an ex-spouse is not someone who will inherit from you, and if there was ever a will that left them anything, the divorce nullifies that will. [...]
It seems obvious that a person who has a severe mental illness, such as chronic schizophrenia, would be the exact type of person for whom a guardianship would be appropriate. The Texas Estates Code seems to support this position. To create a guardianship, the person must be "incapacitated" which the statute defines for an adult [...]
The Texas Estates Code provides templates for the language for a statutory durable power of attorney (financial) or a medical power of attorney. Therefore, these templates have been made into forms that are easily replicable. So, you don' t need an attorney, right? There are two critical disadvantages to attempting to draft your own power [...]
When discussions turn to what the United States Congress is doing, people usually fall into one of two camps: “Why isn't Congress doing something about _____?” “ I think it is always good news when Congress does nothing!” But for 2025, it is both anticipated and somewhat necessary that Congress do something with the Internal [...]
The only document that is needed, or available, to avoid guardianship in case of your incapacity is a medical power of attorney. This is a key document in everyone's estate plan. If you have named an agent and given them authority to make your medical decisions, with a properly executed medical power of attorney that [...]
Your Finances A recent study forecasted "a dramatic rise in the burden from dementia in the United States of the coming decades, with one in two Americans expected to experience cognitive difficulties after age 55" according to Dr. Josef Coresh, the study’s senior investigator and epidemiologist. Dr. Coresh is the founding director of the Optimal [...]
There are two key things to do to make your estate simpler to handle. The first is what we do: prepare good estate planning documents and keep them up to date. Revocable living trusts and wills do not become invalid because of the passage of time; however, they should be reviewed periodically to make sure [...]
In case of your death or disability, your trustee, executor, or financial agent needs to know where your assets are so they can take action to secure those assets and use them for your care. If you have your financial documents stored digitally, your financial agents need to have access to that information. Writing down [...]
Your estate planning binder should contain the originals of all your estate planning documents, but that is not everything that is needed for someone to help you in a time of crisis. Your agent under your medical power of attorney should have the following information, which can easily be kept in your estate planning binder [...]