If you have decided that you want to give a portion of your estate to a charity, you will want to make your choice carefully before you finalize your estate plan. While you can always change your mind later, you want to be sure that the charity you pick is one you will be happy with and one that will not squander your gift. Here’s what you can do.

Step 1: Make your own list.

Even if you’ve given to specific charities all your life, you may want your estate gift to go somewhere new. If you’re having difficulty determining a charity to select, you should start by writing down what matters most to you. Are there certain issues you care strongly about? Certain groups? Write these down and then research related charities that address these issues.

Step 2: Find reputable organizations. Not all charities use donated gifts the same. Charity watchdog organizations recommend that you select a charity that uses no more than about 30 to 40 percent of its revenue as overhead.

Step 3: Be clear about your wishes.

After making your selection, the final step is to dictate your choices in writing. Usually, you make a gift to charity by including that gift in your last will and testament, though there are also options available to you that employ various kinds of trusts. You need to speak your estate planning attorney before you make your selection so you know what options are available.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Are you looking for senior resources in Guilford County, NC (Greensboro, High Point, Burlington, Kernersville) for yourself or a loved one?  Find all of the best local providers at The Eldercare Channel, a video-based web directory of senior care providers in a variety of need areas, including but not limited to home health care, elder law, assisted living, medical devices, Alzheimer’s care, and resources for paying for care.  Your local host for The Eldercare Channel:  Cheryl David is a local Certified Estate Planning Specialist and Elder Law Attorney with over 25 years of experience.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Whether you have a small art collection that represents a small portion of your estate, or a large collection that encompasses the bulk of your estate assets, there are several issues art collectors face when trying to determine how best to divide their collections amongst their children and family. It’s important that if you have a collection you make your decisions carefully, especially when you have important or sentimental pieces that can lead to family conflicts or disagreements.

Issue 1: The love of art.

While you may have spent a lifetime assembling your collection and take immense personal pleasure from it, your passions may not be shared by your children. If you are passing on a large art collection that imposes a significant state or inheritance tax issue, carefully consider whether your children would want the art itself or a gift of cash or property that they can more easily use.

Issue 2: To sell or donate.

If your children are not eager to inherit your collection, you may have to consider selling it or donating it. In this situation, you will have to determine if it would be more viable to sell individual pieces or the collection as an intact set. Finding an appraiser that can evaluate your collection and give you an expert opinion is a necessary step in this situation.

Issue 3: Gifting method.

It’s important that when you make your decision you formalize it in a legally-recognized manner. It may not be enough to simply create a list of your collection and write down who you want to receive it. You may have to include this information as a detailed list in your last will and testament or use another method, so speak to your estate planning lawyer for more information.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Are you looking for senior resources in Guilford County, NC (Greensboro, High Point, Burlington, Kernersville) for yourself or a loved one?  Find all of the best local providers at The Eldercare Channel, a video-based web directory of senior care providers in a variety of need areas, including but not limited to home health care, elder law, assisted living, medical devices, Alzheimer’s care, and resources for paying for care.  Your local host for The Eldercare Channel:   Cheryl David is a local Certified Estate Planning Specialist and Elder Law Attorney with over 25 years of experience.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Are you looking for senior resources in Guilford County, NC (Greensboro, High Point, Burlington, Kernersville) for yourself or a loved one?  Find all of the best local providers at The Eldercare Channel, a video-based web directory of senior care providers in a variety of need areas, including but not limited to home health care, elder law, assisted living, medical devices, Alzheimer’s care, and resources for paying for care.  Your local host for The Eldercare Channel:  Cheryl David is a local Certified Estate Planning Specialist and Elder Law Attorney with over 25 years of experience.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you’re developing an estate plan, deciding who receives your property and how much you should give your children is often a rewarding process. Knowing that you will leave your children well off can be a good feeling. However, there are also downsides of leaving your children a large inheritance, a phenomena known as ‘sudden wealth syndrome’.

Though it sounds made up, sudden wealth syndrome is a real concern and can leave a person who inherits a large fortune much worse off after than they were before. Let’s take a look at what this syndrome entails and why it is important to you as you consider your estate plan.

• Psychological effects. When someone becomes suddenly wealthy, a person can feel a range of emotions, many of which are very negative. People often describe a sense of free falling, or a feeling of being paralyzed or feeling guilty. This can happen even if the person knows they will receive the money beforehand, but yet who are still unable to develop a healthy relationship with their wealth.

• Social effects. Compounding the feelings the newly wealthy person has comes the social effects of becoming wealthy. Newly wealthy people often express a concern that they’re unable to make friendships or that their current relationships suffer. This can lead people to become isolated and depressed and unable to form trusting relationships.

• Lifetime effects. A key component to happiness is the ability to set and achieve goals. When someone inherits wealth, their ability to achieve many if not all of their goals is almost instantaneously met. Though this can seem like an ideal situation, it often leaves newly wealthy people feeling as if their life is meaningless and devoid of purpose.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Whether you own a firearm for self-defense, hunting, target shooting, or as part of a gun collection, you need to take the time to address your gun ownership carefully whenever you create an estate plan. Because of the laws surrounding firearms and the restrictions on who can own them, gun owners face additional estate planning challenges that, while they complicate things, can be easily dealt with by creating the proper instruments.

Many gun owners, instead of passing their firearms through a last will and testament, will create a gun trust. These trusts are a form of revocable living trust, meaning the person who creates the trust can modify it at any time and for any reason.

Gun trusts allow firearms owners to provide detailed instructions on how they wish to distribute their gun collection. They also allow people who own weapons that must be registered under the National Firearms Act, or NFA, to transfer these weapons without having to go through more complicated transfer requirements. For example, a suppressed firearm must be registered under the NFA. To transfer such a weapon you must typically get approval from the chief law enforcement officer in your area. By creating a gun trust, you can bypass this step and instead send your transfer documentation directly to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Nominated for five Academy Awards this year and winning for best adapted screenplay, The Descendents follows a Hawaiian attorney named Matt King, played by George Clooney, who is suddenly confronted with the reality that he will have to care for his two younger daughters, age 17 and 10, after his wife is left comatose. The movie raises several estate planning issues that are of importance to anyone, and of special importance to those considering leaving behind a large estate to your children.

Issue 1. Inherited Wealth. The stories of people who come by wealth unexpectedly or quickly and then go on to squander it is all too common. For those with large estates, transferring wealth to your children is a tricky issue and one that often occupies a place of prime importance in your estate planning efforts. In the movie, King is an attorney who only lives off his own income even though he has inherited a large amount of land from his Hawaiian parents. He struggles to determine what would be best for his children as he is confronted with a decision about whether to sell the land or keep it in the family.

Issue 2. AdvanceMedical Directives: Another issue raised in the film is the question of living wills and advance medical directives. After her injury, King’s wife is left comatose, though she has created and left behind a living will. In that living wills she expresses her desire is not to be kept on life-sustaining measures in the event she has suffered such an injury as she has. Like all living wills, it is up to each individual to create one and make his or her own decisions about the kind of medical care they want to receive.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Last week, the representative of Whitney Houston filed her will with the Fulton County Probate Court in Atlanta. At the time of her death at the age of 49, Ms. Houston was not married and her will stated that her only child should receive her entire estate. Bobbi Kristina Brown, the daughter of Whitney Houston and former husband and singer Bobby Brown, is currently 19 years old and will receive portions of the estate over the coming years. Though questions have been raised about the value of the estate, her daughter will receive a portion of her inheritance at the age of 21, 25 and 30. Like other wills, it involves several issues of interest to those creating their own estate plan.

Trust: Though currently an adult, her daughter will not receive the entire estate until she reaches the age of 30 because Ms. Houston’s will dictates as much. Instead, the estate assets she will receive will be placed in trust. Because the trust was created by the will, it is known as a testamentary trust as opposed to a living trust.

Codicil: Ms. Houston created her original will in 1993 but created subsequent amendments in 2000 and 2004. These amendments, known as codicils, are the only way you can change the terms of your will besides creating an entirely new one.

Ex-Husband: Ms. Houston divorced her husband in 2006 and her will left nothing to him. This is very common after a couple divorces, and there is no law that requires a person give anything to a former spouse.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The saga of the Huguette Clark estate has made headlines since the millionaire heiress died in 2011. Having been the only inheritor of her late father’s estimated $400 million fortune, Ms. Clark left behind no close family members to whom she could pass her estate. Her distant family members are now claiming that fraud was involved on the part of her nurse, lawyer and attorney in the later years of her life that led to her disinheriting her family in her final will.

The family members point out that Ms. Clark’s personal nurse, who had served her for about 20 years, personally inherited $30 million under the terms of the heiresses will. This is in addition to about $26 million that Ms. Clark had given to the nurse while she was still alive, a sum that includes a $200,000 car and five different homes.

The family members claim that because of the fraud the New York Surrogate’s Court should throw out Ms. Clark’s will and instead adopt her second-to-last will as her last will and testament. This second-to-last will left much to her family, even though the closest relative are half grand-nieces and half grand-nephews. The two wills were created about six weeks apart from one another, and if the court determines that one is invalid because Ms. Clark did not have testamentary capacity, it may very well invalidate both wills and determine that the estate should be distributed under the New York laws of intestate succession.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.