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What About Personal Property?
When funding a trust, the family home is a common asset transferred to the trust. But what about personal property? Can you fund your trust with things like jewelry and antiques?The short answer is yes, you can, but there are some special concerns that exist when using personal property to fund a trust.
The first thing you need to know is that personal property falls into two categories: property that has a legal certificate of title, and property that doesn't.
Cars and boats are good examples of personal property with a legal certificate of title, but before funding your trust with this type of property, you should consult with your attorney.
Because you'll be transferring title to the trust, any accidents involving these items could make the trust liable for the damage or injury.
If you do decide to place these items in your trust, be sure your liability insurance carrier knows about the change in ownership, so it can be reflected on your policy.
What about all the rest of your personal property? Things like clothes, household items, jewelry and antiques don't come with a certificate of title and the reality is, most of us own too much to list out every single item.
In addition, we continue to acquire and dispose of countless personal items during our lifetime.
Fortunately, there's an easy way to do this.
To fund property that does not carry a legal certificate of title, you'll need a document known as an Assignment of Tangible Personal Property. This is a blanket document that states that all of your property that doesn't have a legal certificate of title is officially transferred into your trust. The Assignment can simply state that all of the personal property you own at the time you sign the Assignment goes into the trust.
Additionally, it can specify that all personal property you acquire after signing the Assignment also goes into the trust. No matter what kind of property you own, properly funding your trust is an essential step in avoiding probate.
Estate Planning the best way for tax deduction
In this present world, taxpayers should plan earlier to take advantage of the recent tax planning measures. One of the best ways for tax planning is to get the help of an estate plan professional. Many people go for Estate planning because they want the estate tax, imposed by the state government to get avoided. Putting an estate plan is the best way to reduce such estate tax. There are also other reliable means to attain taxation benefits such as buying a home, vehicle, getting a health insurance account or some new retirement plans. Also by donating a charitable account, you can completely hand-out your income thus receiving tax deduction.By using the estate planning, which is one of the primary planning techniques, one can possibly eliminate the estate taxes. After experiencing a loss in income, most people get the advice of an attorney regarding estate planning. Estate plan sounds better when the beneficiary is a minor. A better estate plan provides safety for your properties and will be useful for both ourselves and our beneficiaries. Before opting for an estate plan, just make a rough calculation of your investments, properties and liabilities. This will help you know whether your estate is liable for such tax and can seek the help of your lawyer in advance. Not only estate plans are needed for financial reasons, but also for personal reasons. Such plans would take care of your family after your death.
The first step to start an estate plan is to make a quick calculation of your properties and accounts. Next you should decide who should be the beneficiary. Normally people would neglect such provisions as they think that these were of less need. Unlike that, you should have a strong decision on who should be your heir. The next step is to find a qualified and well experienced attorney. He will certainly help you creating the estate plan and also will guide you with necessary instructions. It is also much important to maintain and update your estate plan every year atleast to know whether any changes are required. With the help of estate planning, you get a systematic concept of financial dealings in life.
No one might have ever thought of what would happen if they die without making a will or estate plan. As per the law, the spouse or children will inherit the property. If the person doesn't have any children, the property goes to his parents or relatives. With the assistance of a lawyer, you could make your loved ones benefit from your properties as per your will. It is impossible for an estate planning attorney to write the same documents for both married and individuals. The cost for preparing an estate plan varies for each. Mostly clients go for cheaper fee, but such cases will not be reliable. To get one of the best tax planning technique, we should opt for a qualified and experienced estate planning professional rather than looking for the one who asks for a cheaper fee.
What Happens to Property Left Out of Your Revocable Living Trust?
It's not always possible to have a perfectly-funded Revocable Living Trust. Sometimes, a trust maker acquires new property and forgets to transfer it into his or her trust. Sometimes, he or she acquires new property and just doesn't have a chance to fund it into the trust before passing away. In other situations, the property just doesn't lend itself to being transferred into the trust.So, what happens to property that isn't funded into your Revocable Living Trust before you pass away? It depends on the type of property.
Joint Property
If you hold property with another person as Joint Tenants With Rights of Survivorship, as is often the case with real estate or bank accounts, then, upon your death the property passes to your co-owner without the need for probate.
If you hold property jointly as tenants in common, on the other hand, then things are a little trickier. When you hold property as tenants in common, then your share of that property is actually treated like an individual interest in that property, so when you pass away, it's subject to probate.
Title by Contract
Other property may be owned by you, but another person has rights to the property via contract. This is the case with payable on death accounts and life insurance accounts, as well as retirement accounts. These types of property pass to the designated beneficiary (the person with contractual rights to the property) outside of the probate process.
Individual Property
Property that you own individually, meaning anything titled in solely in your name without a beneficiary designation, as well your share of real estate owned as a tenant in common, has to go through the probate process before it can be distributed to your heirs or beneficiaries.
Because of this, it's a good idea that anyone who has a Revocable Living Trust also have a Pour-Over Will. This type of will simply "catches" any of your individual property that's left out of your trust, and, after the property goes through the probate process, "pours" the property into your trust. So, even though the property has to go through probate, it still ends up in your trust, to be distributed to your intended beneficiaries.
How Do You Own Your Property?
When it comes to estate planning, it's essential for both you and your attorney to know how your property is titled. Knowing how you own your property has an effect on what estate planning methods you use – and whether or not your estate plan is even effective. Here are the basic categories of property ownership: Joint Ownership Joint ownership includes property that's held as Joint Tenants With Rights of Survivorship, and property that's held as Tenants in Common.It's important to know the difference between these two types of joint property, because they're treated completely differently when it comes to estate planning and probate. Joint Tenants With Rights of Survivorship When you own property as Joint Tenants With Rights of Survivorship – a home, for instance, or a bank account – and you pass away, the entire property passes to the surviving owner outside of the probate process. This is great news if it's what you intend to have happen. But say you own a home with Jane as joint tenants, and you want the home to go to Sue when you pass away? If you don't understand how your property is titled, you might just write a will that says you want your home to go to Sue. This won't work, because your will has no effect on property that's titled as Joint Tenants With Rights of Survivorship. The will only controls the probate process, and the house passes outside of probate.
So, it's important that both you and your attorney know how your property is titled. Tenants In Common What if you and Jane own a home together as Tenants In Common? Then you each own an interest in the house, and when you pass away, your share of the house is treated like individual property. So, if you have a will, the will controls who gets your share of the house. If you have no will, then the state intestacy statute controls who gets your share of the house. Title By Contract Some types of property are owned by you, but you've given your beneficiaries a right to the property via contract. Examples include life insurance policies, payable on death accounts, annuities and retirement accounts. When you've designated a beneficiary to receive this type of property, then, upon your death, the property passes to your beneficiary outside of the probate property. Again, your will has no effect on this type of property.
So, especially if you're recently divorced, it's important to review your beneficiary designations in addition to changing your will, to make sure you don't inadvertently leave your ex-spouse an inheritance. Individual Ownership Property that's titled solely in your name, without a beneficiary designation, is your individual property. When you pass away, this property will be subject to probate and is controlled by your will, if you have one. In order to avoid probate, you may consider transferring your individual property into a Revocable Living Trust.
Carry Out an Intellectual Property Investigation
Before proceeding to explore the best way to go about carrying out an intellectual property investigation, it may be a good idea to mention something with regard to when such an investigation would be justified. Now the need for you to carry out an intellectual property investigation would arise where you feel that someone could have breached your intellectual property rights. It could be, for instance, where you have filed a patent for a particular product and where, rather ‘coincidentally,' you come across someone selling a suspiciously similar product.It could also be where you, as a creative worker (say a writer, a film maker, a singer or anything along those lines) come across bootleg copies of your work, and where you are keen on knowing who is infringing on your intellectual property rights. Or it could be where you feel that you are not getting enough money out of your intellectual property and where you come to develop a suspicion that the other people with whom you co-own the intellectual property are short-changing you.
In all these situations, the intellectual property investigation would have a number of objectives. Firstly, it would be aimed at identifying the source of the intellectual property infringement. This would be important because as it often turns out in these kinds of situations, the source of property rights infringement you most strongly suspect can be the most innocent person, whilst the person you least suspect turns out to be the real culprit. So the first objective would be to identify the actual source of the infringement. The second objective of the intellectual property investigation would be to establish the motives of the infringement. Sometimes, the motives for property rights infringement go beyond a desire to illegally benefit from the intellectual property. Sometimes, it turns out to be a case of malice, or a case of sabotage by a competitor, and these would be important things for you to establish properly. Finally, the intellectual property investigation would be aimed at building up a water-tight case that can carry the day in a court of justice, leading to restitution on your part, and punishment for the perpetrator of the intellectual property infringement.
The best way to go about intellectual property investigation would be by engaging the services of an investigator who is knowledgeable and experienced in this area. Sometimes, especially in the earliest stages of the whole thing, this may have to be a private investigator; with whose help you can understand the fundamentals of the whole thing, before calling in government investigators with whose help you can build up a prosecutable case.
Normally, the investigation will start with the identification of possible suspects. A hypothesis on how the whole thing is happening will be developed at this stage too. This is where an investigator's creativity comes in handy. Once we have a hypothesis (and a viable one at that), the next step would be to try and develop leads from it. Then the mechanics of the investigation would involve following those initial leads, and in the course of doing so unearthing other newer leads. The pursuit of the newer would lead to yet other leads…till the whole situation reveals itself, the real culprits identified and proper action taken against them.
Copyright Law on the Internet
Intellectual property has come under the spotlight in the media particularly over the past ten years, primarily due to the increased ease in which has become possible to copy and transmit data across the planet. The information age has led to literary works, music, film and other creative content being copied and transmitted in the matter of seconds.Intellectual property laws around the world are generally still based on notion of physical goods. It is easier for a person to understand how physical goods should not be counterfeited and sold than it is to conceptualize the copying of bits and bytes. Many people see downloading across the internet as a minor grievance, perpetuated against large corporations. A huge battle has ensued that has included artists aggrieved that people have been copying their intellectual property without paying for it, the publishers who lose money, the facilitators of piracy such as websites and distribution software, and the end-users.
Because intellectual property laws are based on the idea of physical goods, sometimes the law is out of step with reality of life in the new millennium. Countries have been updating their copyright laws, but find it difficult to keep up with the pace of new technology. There has always been the idea that ‘fair use' of intellectual property should not be penalized, and due to the increase in the different types of copyrighted material that can be duplicated and distributed the definition of ‘fair use' is now quite fuzzy.
Intellectual property rights and copyright law is made more complicated by our new global community. Although files, text and media are being distributed across the planet regardless of boundaries, the copyright laws which govern them are administered on a country-by-country basis. There is no doubt that some countries have much stronger copyright laws than others, and so-called ‘pirates' can operate with ease in some countries. Various countries, in desperation, have resulted in blocking websites and trying to divert traffic, but this has angered free speech and net neutrality activists.
All creative works, from writing and photography to software and music, is covered under an implied copyright law, which means we don't need to apply for copyright as we would need to do for a patent. However, copyright has become a minefield to try and protect, and many inventors and creators have felt the pain of seeing their creative works copied around the world without them making any financial gain from it.
Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
A patent is a allowance by a government to an inventor, allotting the right to restrict others for a set period from making, employing or selling the invention all over a country. It is a record in which the invention is ampley illustrated and the scope of the invention outlined.Utility patents are bestowed for invention of new and worthwhile processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of material or several new and worthwhile advancement thereof. U.S. Patents use to survive for a phrase of 17 years from the dates they are bestowed. U.S. Patent applications processed today have a phrase of 20 years from processing. Each country has its own patent law.
Design patents encompass the external enhancement of a product and supply frailer defense than utility patents, but are significantly less pricey to get hold of. They are brought into play, for illustration, to compriseornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers and computer icons.
A trademark is any word, name, symbol, or device ratified and brought into play by a manufacturer or marketer to differentiate the origin of the goods or services and tell the difference between them from those furnished by others. A service mark is a genre of trademark that contributes to services.
The principal performance of a trademark is to witness origin. Never the less, trademarks additionally assist to assure the quality of the goods or services and, through advertising, assist to produce and uphold demand. Rights in a trademark are gained by consumption or applying for a federal trademark registration in advance of use. Use of the trademark is required to ultimately occur, and is required to last on if the rights so gained are to be preserved. Each country has its own trademark law
Copyright is a genre of defense presented by the laws of a country to authors of new works of authorship as well as literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and further works. Protection is offered to both published and unpublished works.
Patent and Trademark Attorney
Every time a new inventor comes to the business world many businessmen try to win his heart, most of them want to exploit you and earn money from your invention. To avoid this, it's important you hire a competent patent and trademark attorney. A patent and trademark attorney will help in rewriting a patent and the process of registering a trademark for your innovation.As a businessman it's very important to trademark your idea, this will distract other business men from creating identical product that can create confusion in the market. A trademark is a symbol next to your company name or logo tells the world that this is your idea and company. You will need to register your trademark to protect your company from others illegally using yours. Usually trademark gives your company brand name that's very essential in the business world, for that matter you need to protect from illegal use at any given time. By patenting your products, getting the copyright on the necessary documents and registering your trademark, you will make it illegal for any other company to sell your product or use the trademark without asking your permission to do so first. You should hire a competent and qualified lawyer who will help you in the process of registering a trademark.
Since The process of obtaining a patent and registering your trademark can take sometime to complete it can be subjected to high legal fee which put many young and talented inventor from business, in this context you should make sure; the attorney you choose to represent you offers you affordable solution that are within your budget specification. Also to make sure you not paying huge sums of money for nothing you should engage yourself in market research to certify there is nothing of such specification has been patented, the attorney should be able to advice on this issue. After you have done the search and found your idea to be worth you can now have enough confidence to face a trademark and patent attorney to write the patent and file the paper for registration. Never try to file your paper to the United States trademark and patent office without the assistance of an attorney; they have ability to push the paperwork through faster and very easily, it can be very annoying to find out you filed your papers later to find some details were missing or someone have registered the same type of invention since he got access to your documents. Also make sure the attorney representing you is registered with USPTO, as this will guarantee you of having a qualified person. Another important aspect you should put emphasis before making the final selection is his expertise and experience in the industry.
4 Steps IP Lawyers Can Take To Reactivate Lost Customers
Many IP legal services professionals that lose clients write them off and instead try to focus on winning new clients.This is not a good tactic because customer reactivation is worth the effort as a means of growing an IP legal services business. According to the US Office of Consumer Affairs, it costs six times more to acquire a customer than it does to keep an existing one.
If you truly believe in the value of the IP legal services you offer, you need to stop thinking of lost customers as ‘past' customers. Think of them as ‘inactive' customers with the potential to come back and buy again and many more times in the future. But they won't do it on their own – not most of the time.
68% of customers leave because they were treated with indifference, disrespect, apathy or neglectful behaviours on the part of employees of that business organisation with whom they interacted.
Before you do any customer reactivation activity, you need to find out why your customer(s) left you. You should not make any assumptions about their reasons for doing so and, unless they explicitly told you why, you need to ask.
Once you have the necessary feedback, you have information that allows you to:
1. Think about ways you can improve the IP legal services you offer;
2. Make sure that the services you provide result in benefits that your target market is actively searching for. Even better, the benefits should surpass expectations if you really want to differentitate yourself from your competitors;
3. Look at the way you market your services. How can you communicate better so that you start to reactivate inactive' clients? What guarantees can you provide so that so that your services are even more attractive to those that left you before? What other marketing assets can you use to make your marketing collateral more attractive? Finally, do you have a systemised multi-step campaign plan in place to add value to every touchpoint you have with prospects?
4. Think about the incentives or offers you can give to get ‘inactive' clients interested in you again. You might have information that is really valuable that you can share, or have a series of webinars / seminars that address issues your target market is really interested in.
If you think about the money and time you spent to obtain a client in the first place, it is a shame to then ignore them because they took business elsewhere.
Unless you doubt the value you bring to the table, you have every reason to think about ways to win back lost clients to your IP legal services practice. Part of it requires a change in attitude, but most of it relates to making sure you let them know more about what you have to offer, the benefits that result, and the value you can bring to the relationship with them which makes you stamd out from your competition.
Planning for the Future with a Will
Most individuals don't even think about creating a Will until they become married and have children of their own. Some usually put off the task simply because they are young. While some only begins to realize its importance until something of major misfortune has happened to them like acquiring a severe and terminal illness. In some families, disputes over properties are getting common especially when there are so many assets at stake.A Will is not just any document that you can simply make overnight. It requires tedious thought and effort in order to make sure that all your whishes are in place and will be granted by the court when the right time comes. All that matters to you should be included in the Will. It is a legal document and in order to put things in its right perspective, it has to be written down carefully. A single mistake can lead to a lot of disaster. Your family may not get their exact inheritance, your children may fall in the wrong hands of a deceiving guardian, and your properties may evaporate in thin air. All these things are the consequences of creating an inaccurate Will.
If you have a considerable amount of assets which can be the source of future family disputes, then a Will is very essential. Although, a Will can also be challenged by heirs and certain third parties, hiring a lawyer to assist you draft this particular document can surely help a lot in avoiding such things to happen. Also, a lawyer can offer several wise and legal advices on how to state your will in the most clear and organized manner according to the current laws set by your state. A certified accountant will make a great financial advisor and can help a lot in determining the exact value of your assets and how to divide them to your heirs. You, your lawyer, and your accountant should work hand in hand in making the Will. Another thing that you should give attention to is choosing for the right and trustworthy executor. An executor can be an individual coming from your family, closest friends, or from an estate administration firm who will be responsible for fulfilling your wishes stipulated in your Will.
Should you need an estate lawyer and certified accountant, you can always rely on the services of the Estate Planning Austin Tx. Aside from helping you draft a Will, these professionals can also help you make all kinds of legal documents related to estate planning. The Estate Planning Austin Tx is really serious about their work because they want to provide their clients the best planning documents that they will need to make sure their future and the future of their loved ones are safe and secured.
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