Episodes

Clients often wonder: should they tell their family about their assets and estate plan? A family wealth discussion can be a tense experience or a joyous occasion. Of course, they can also be everything in between. To be clear, there’s no legal reason you have to explain your estate plan or disclose your wealth to family members. There’s also no legal reason not to do so. Some, but not all, clients decide to engage in a family discussion. Privacy considerations may be more important than disclos...

Cybersecurity is an important concern for businesses — and for individuals. In this week’s podcast episode, we talk about a recent brush with a hacking exploit in our office. Our office — and our client information — remained safe. We did not lose any data or operability. But still, it was a difficult, challenging — even embarrassing — episode. We explain, and have some suggestions for clients and colleagues.

We all know the cliches about elderly drivers. As we age many of us experience diminished function. It may be vision, hearing, response time or even cognitive ability. The aging driver can be a concern for family members and the community. This week our podcast episode deals with the elderly driver and how to plan for (and respond to) diminishing capability. We often hear from our clients that they will know when to stop driving. But that’s not what we often hear from family members. In fact, t...

Sometimes the authority to make health care decisions for another person does not work out. It can especially founder on a common limitation: it might not include mental health powers. Without authority over mental health decisions, the agent, guardian or family member may be unable to arrange for sufficient care. Arizona law distinguishes between making general health care decisions for another person and making the decision to authorize inpatient mental health care. In this week’s podcast epi...

We have written and talked before about pets and the elderly client in our office. But most of that discussion has focused on how to make plans for your pets after your inevitable demise. What about taking care of pets — and having them help take care of you — as you age? As we explain in this podcast episode, there are all sorts of concerns about pets and the elderly. They range from physical safety (active and inactive pets can be fall risks, for example) to emotional security (the value of p...

It will come as no surprise that there is an election in November, 2020. Depending on the outcome, there might be significant changes in estate, gift and generation-skipping taxes as soon as next year. Are there things that you need to consider in your planning for 2021? Yes, there are some. Mostly, though, the planning concerns are for very wealthy individuals and couples. People worth less than a few million dollars (perhaps $5 million for married couples) have little to worry about on the es...

Time for your next podcast class: Trust Funding 201. You signed your living trust (and related documents). Good. You’re halfway done. The rest of the job: transferring assets to the trust. In last week’s podcast we focused on some of the basic funding issues, in what we called Trust Funding 101. This week we offer Trust Funding 201: a look at some of the more advanced funding issues. The hardest topic of all: what to do with your Individual Retirement Account (IRA), Roth IRA, 401(k) or other ...

It can be challenging to figure out how to title assets after you have created a revocable living trust. We’re calling this initial review Trust Funding 101. We discuss some of the common titling issues. In a later episode (Trust Funding 201) we will cover some of the more complicated trust funding issues. That’s when we’ll review retirement account beneficiary designations, for instance. Meanwhile, join us for this review of the basics. That includes real estate, bank and brokerage accounts, l...

The “community property” rules sometimes confuse or alarm lawyers from states that apply the “common-law” property rules. Arizona community property is not really that complicated, but it can be foreign to estate planning practitioners from other states. In this podcast episode, we try to simplify some of the Arizona community property rules. They seem second nature to us — and we think they reflect how most non-lawyer married couples treat their property rights anyway. But we discuss some of t...

We often consult with blended families about their estate planning. Those families — sometimes with “yours, mine and our” kids, or disparate young-adult backgrounds — can pose special concerns for us to work through. How common are concerns? The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 1,300 new step-families are formed every day. More than half of families have at least one divorce in their personal story. And as we have explained before, Arizona’s default rules for married couples with children not co...

There is a lot of social and familial pressure for most people to leave the bulk of their estate to their children. Sometimes, though, we deal with planning with childless clients. How are they different? In this podcast episode we talk about estate planning with our childless clients. Their planning might pose different concerns, like: Who will act as their trustee, personal representative, and financial and health care agent? Many clients rely on their children for those roles, and the child...

Last week we discussed record keeping for conservatorship matters. The rules are similar, but somewhat different, for trust and probate record keeping. Generally, accounting requirements for trusts and probate proceedings are somewhat easier to handle (at least in Arizona). But simpler accounting does not necessarily mean that record keeping is simpler. A trustee or a personal representative should assume they will have to file or distribute a detailed accounting, just like the ones ordinarily ...

Conservatorship record keeping must be precise and detailed. Conservators are responsible to the court that appointed them. Courts — at least in Arizona — pay close attention to conservators’ accounts. We have discussed the court involvement in conservatorships before. And it’s important to note that even the term “conservator” can have different meanings in other states (in California, for instance, a “conservator” encompasses both what we call a conservator and a guardian).

Arizona has recently become one of America’s hotspots for COVID-19. We are all worried about what will happen next. At Fleming & Curti, PLC, we don’t have any crystal ball. But in this coronavirus update, we tell you what we’re experiencing in our office, what steps we have taken to protect you (and us), and what effect the pandemic has had on our practice. We’re using masks, gloves, disinfectants and social distancing — even at work. We urge you to do the same. Our response is evolving, but ou...

To our delight, a national expert visited us in Tucson recently. Our New York friend Lawrence Davidow explains the SECURE Act in a an Elder Law Issues podcast discussion. We have talked about the SECURE Act before (back in February, before the whole world changed). But we weren’t going to pass up a chance to hear from someone as nationally-known and well-respected as New York Elder Law attorney Lawrence Davidow. [Note: shortly after we recorded this discussion, the IRS effectively extended the...

New York Medicaid rules don’t ordinarily concern us at Fleming & Curti, PLC. After all, we are a Tucson elder law attorney firm. We don’t practice in New York at all. But when we have an opportunity to discuss state-to-state differences with one of the leading elder law practitioners in the nation, we take it. This week we talk with good friend and extraordinary elder law attorney Lawrence Davidow. He has been a leader in the field for over thirty years. In fact, Lawrence is a former President ...

Leading New York elder law attorney Lawrence Davidow was recently in Tucson visiting a friend. We talked him into joining us for a discussion about elder law. Our question: how does the practice of elder law in his home state differ from our Arizona experience? Lawrence left New York just as their coronavirus cases began to come under control. After he arrived in Tucson our state’s experience began to deteriorate significantly. As you might imagine, we talked about what he had seen among his ol...

Must administrators prepare formal inventories in probate and trust administration? Does every case require employment of a professional appraiser? Is an inventory public, so that anyone can know what was left to whom? How about beneficiaries, or family members who were left out of the will or trust? In this podcast episode, we discuss the nature of inventories in probate and trust administration. We explain that few inventories need to be filed as part of any public record. And there’s more go...

Everyone knows that it’s important to avoid probate, right? But what is probate, anyway? Is probate expensive, time consuming and invasive? Well, it certainly can be — but most often it’s not very complicated and easy to handle. And also, most often it is easy to avoid. Last week we discussed probate avoidance. This week we focus on defining the term — and explaining when probate is required.

Avoiding probate: most of our estate planning clients are already sure that’s important. But how can you avoid probate? And is it important? What (if any) problems might develop? In this week’s regular podcast episode, we talk about avoiding probate in Arizona. We explain beneficiary designations, Arizona’s beneficiary deed option, and some of the other techniques. We help you understand the significance of probate avoidance. One primary technique we discuss: establishing a trust. But even tha...

Tom Curti has a lot of practice memories. Tom retired from Fleming & Curti, PLC — and the practice of law — last summer. He had a 43-year career in the practice. More than half of that was at Fleming & Curti, PLC, but that is not all he did in those years. Recently Tom came back into the office to talk about retirement — and to reminisce about his years of practice. He can tell good stories, and he shared a few of them with us.

We’re still doing estate planning in the pandemic. In this podcast episode, we discuss the kinds of issues clients are asking about, and what steps we encourage people to take. What is the single most important document for you to get in order now? (Spoiler alert: we think it’s your health care power of attorney.) In Arizona, as in most states, law offices like ours have been identified as “essential“. That means we can stay open — but we’re taking lots of precautions to make sure clients and ...

Tom’s retirement. What does an estate planning lawyer learn from advising others about his own retirement planning? Tom Curti, founding partner of Fleming & Curti, PLC, retired just one year ago. At the time Tom was a 44-year lawyer. The Fleming & Curti partnership had been in place for more than a quarter century. For all of that time, Tom focused on estate planning. He was, in fact, certified as an Estate & Trust specialist by the State Bar of Arizona. So when an Estate & Trust specialist pl...

You completed your estate planning, signing a will, and maybe even a trust. At the same time you signed a durable financial power of attorney, and a health care power of attorney. You planned for the possibility that you become incapacitated or die. But what happens about agents who become incapable of handling your affairs for you? The agents you named in your powers of attorney are extraordinarily important. In fact, we have previously observed that those powers of attorney are probably the m...