DICK BROWN'S LIFE TRANSITIONS & ESTATE PLANNING BLOG What's this blog about? This blog is where I share news and other things that interest me - life observations, developments in the news and the law, and ideas and resources for planning for life's transitions (what some folks call "estate planning") and building a meaningful legacy that can last for generations. This blog provides general information and may provide some general understanding of the law, or at least how I see things.  It does not and cannot provide specific legal advice. This blog definitely does not create an attorney client relationship between you and Dick Terrell Brown or Brown & Lacallade, P.C. Because each individual and family is unique and all legal advice must be tailored to deal with the unique facts involved, neither this nor any blog can be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your state.   Who's the blogger? , Dick Terrell Brown AustinTexas Click here to read my complete profile. July 15, 2008 The Heath Ledger Will Saga Goes On Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported today that Heath Ledger's Will has been filed for probate in Perth, Australia.  According to lawyers there, if a claim is filed on behalf of his daughter  Matilda Rose (born after his Will was signed), she will be entitled to "the lion's share" of his estate, even though his will did not mention her and left everything to his parents, sister, and step sisters.  Earlier reports from legal experts were that under New York law, she would get is all.  There is, however, a hitch, the Daily Telegraph says.  According to it, Matilda Rose's "mother, actor Michelle Williams, will have to officially lodge a claim with the court supported by an affidavit which could end up in the public domain, legal experts said."  Our clients don't face that kind of public exposure that can attract the attention of predators.  They base their plans on living trusts, which are private agreements that do not become a public record. The assets that pass by the terms of a trust are not probate assets and do not appear on the sworn inventory that has to be filed in a will probate case. To explore having a private plan to protect your heirs, call for your Family Wealth Planning Session – 330-9802. We’ll be glad to hear from you! Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. July 11, 2008 Hostage Taking - It's Becoming a Popular Political Act I am old enough to remember when an American being taken hostage for political reasons was a very rare event indeed.  That began changing in the 1970s, first with the Symbionese Liberation Army’s abduction of heiress Patricia Hearst in 1974, followed by Iran’s holding 52 American diplomats hostage in the American Embassy in Tehran for 444 days in the Carter Administration.  Then there were the journalists and others in Lebanon and on ships in the Mediterranean.  Nowadays, hostage taking, for ransom or for political reasons, seems much more common and really only makes the news when a hostage is recovered.  Such was the case of the several dozens, including some two American missionaries, taken hostage in Malaysia and the Phillipines and held for years by the Islamist group, Abu Sayyaf..  So, too, with the FARC in Colombia, from which just last week Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans, and 11 others were rescued from years of captivity (6 for Ms. Betancourt, who was captured while campaigning to become President of Colombia).  While we do not know the specifics of the financial difficulties the families of any of these hostages faced during the time their loved one was held captive, we know that it could have been greatly worsened by an absence of planning for life's contingencies.  If any of them thought that their family would be taken care of because they had a Will, they were sadly mistaken.  A Will is only for if you are dead, not if you are held hostage.  To take control of a hostage's financial affairs, the family would have to go to court and have a receiver appointed - someone who would do the court's bidding and report and account to the court for all actions taken.  That kind of proceeding is HUGELY expensive and time consuming.  And, it does not happen just to people who are taken hostage and their families.  It also happens to people who become incapacitated without adequate and proper planning and affects their families just as adversely.  Plus, the burden comes at a time when the family is already is under incredible, almost unbearable, stress.  Life does not have to be that way.  Our clients' plan ifor the contingency of incapacity, whether  from disease, injury, or kidnapping.  Why?  Because while the odds are low that you will ever be taken hostage, the odds are better than 50/50 that you will become incapacitated before you die.  To find out more, call us at 330-9802 to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session to discuss incapacity planning and much more.  We'll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. July 4, 2008 Reflections on My Family's Legacy It's early in the morning and I'm sitting on the deck of my family's summer place overlooking the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country near Hunt, Texas.  My wife, Cinda is still asleep, as are my  daughter, Melissa, and her husband, Jerry.  Our other daughter, Lucinda, is spending the weekend with Cinda's mother at their family's summer home - the highest cabin in the Chautauqua in Boulder, Colorado.  I get to enjoy this wonderful place because of the deams of a young boy - my great uncle, Henry P. Burney.  You see, Uncle Henry grew up in Kerrville and, as a boy, rode with his friends all over the county doing what boys do - including swimming, huntiung, and fishing.   In about 1900, at age 10, he decided which was the best swimming hole and resolved that some day he would own it. This summer is the 80th anniversary of the fulfillment of that dream.  By 1928, Uncle Henry had grown up, gone to college, become a lawyer, moved to San Antonio, married into a prominent family, established a successful law career, and served as the first President of the San Antonio Bar Association.  That  was the year, he and his wife's brother-in-law, my grandfather, Dick O. Terrell,  who was also a lawyer, bought that land alongside that swimming hole and built two summer houses on it - one for each family.   Now five generations have enjoyed the blessing of the legacy they established.  I never knew my grandfathers -- they both died before my parents married.  I do well remember my grandmothers, Uncle Henry, and his wife, Aunt Clare.  However, I have virtually no knowledge of their lives beyond what my parents passed on to me in conversations.  My parents are now gone too and I deeply regret not ever having gotten around to recording their observations on their lives and legacies.   It does not have to be tht way for you.  You don't have to be an award-winning journalist or even a writer to pass on your intellectual, spiritual, and human wealth to future generations.  Our clients do it through our Priceless Conversations program.  Once each year, we sit down with them for an informal conversation and record their answers to a series of questions we ask them.  The questions, on a subject they have chosen, are carefully designed to capture a part of their intellectual, spiritual, or human wealth.  We have these questions on more than 40 subjects, such as your love for your children, what you remember about your childhood and your grandparents, and what is most important to you in life. To learn more about Priceless Comnversations, call us at 330-9802 to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session to discuss Priceless Conversations and much more. We'll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. June 18, 2008 Trouble for Trouble. Poor Trouble. She was a very rich dog for a while.  When Leona Helmsley died, she left $12 Million in her will to take care of her beloved Maltese, Trouble, for life.  However, a will is sort of like a letter to a judge saying, "when I am dead, please have my Executor distribute my property to 'X'."  In Trouble's case, Mrs. Helmsley's grandchildren asked the Judge to disregard Mrs. Helmsley's directions and give some of  that money to them (Mrs. Helmsley had left all of her billions to a charitable foundation for the care of animals).  And, the Judge did just that!  She took $10 million away from Trouble, gave $6 Million to the grandchildren, and the other $4 Million to Mrs. Helmsley's foundation!     Don't let a judge second guess your desires.  Call us at 330-9802 to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session to discuss how to avoid this sort of thing and much more. We'll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting.   June 16, 2008 Life Comes at You Fast We've all seen those TV ads by Nationwide Insurance. The actor or actress is feeling all secure, then WHAM!!!, something totally unexpected hits like the proverbial "bolt from the blue." On the morning of Friday, June 13th, Tim Russert and I had several things in common. We both had a history of battling high cholesterol and our weight. We both saw excellent cardiologists on a regular basis, had no symptoms of coronary artery disease, and our cardiologists' testing showed we had no significant coronary artery blockage. We were both at work, doing what we love to do and do best. I was in San Antonio discussing advanced legal techniques for asset protection and tax avoidance and Tim Russert was in NBC's Washington studio preparing for his every-Sunday show, Meet the Press. I have treated every day as a precious gift since I was almost killed in an airline accident in the late 1980s. However, on the morning of June 13th I was not particularly focusing my mortality. If Tim was like most of us, he was not considering his. I was looking forward to spending the evening with my sister and her husband who live in San Antonio. I have no idea what Tim was looking forward to. Yet, by noon on that day our life paths had suddenly veered apart. I, who am a little older, got to spend the evening with my sister and her husband. Tim was dead at 58 years of age. Like those commercials say, "Life comes at you fast." In the days since that Friday, I have done a lot of thinking about all of the people I have know for whom death or disability came suddenly and without warning. My mother and a cousin both died as a result of something unexpected happening in surgery. An old fried decided to trim a tree limb before going to work, fell backwards off his ladder, and died instantly. A wonderful doctor's wife  friend slipped on her sidewalk one morning, fell backwards, and died of a skull fracture. I thought of a colleague who was returning from a football game with his wife and a talented your dance teacher, both of whom pulled out in front of an 18 wheeler in a moment of inattention. The list goes on. One thing we all have in common is that we are going to die. None of us knows when that will be. And, we also share a high probability of spending some part of our life incapacitated - depending on others to make decisions and care for us. Yet most of us go on from day to day as if we were immortal, not planning for those "what ifs." A statistic that is shocking to me is that almost 70% of the parents of minor children have not even taken the first step of naming someone to be the guardian of their children is something should happen to them. And just as many Americans of all levels of wealth have made no plans for what will happen to everything they own when they die. If you have not named guardians for your children, don't go to bed tonight until you have done so. It's easy. just CLICK HERE to go to a web site that will walk you step by step through the whole process! To find out who will get your property if you die without doing further planning, call us at 330-9802 to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session to discuss that very subject and much more. We'll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. June 11, 2008 The Gift of Time: Letters from a Father  by Jorge Ramos     Jorge Ramos has won eight Emmy Awards and has been the anchor for Univision News for the last twenty-one years.  He has appeared on NBC'sToday, CNN's Talk Back Live, ABC's Nightline, and Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor, among others, and is the bestselling author of No Borders: A Journalist's Search for Home and Dying to Cross.  In his career he has been in many dangerous places.  Yesterday he was on the CBS's Early Show to talk about his new book. He told about how, one sunny morning, he was driving to his dentist's office when suddenly a van almost hit him head on and killed him.  That shock, more than all the horrors he had witnessed as a journalist, brought him face to face with his own mortality. He realized that he had almost lost the opportunity to tell his story to his children.  His response was to write another book, The Gift of Time:  Letters from a Father.  In it, according to Barnes & Noble, he "reflects upon the world we live in and shares his love for his children in a series of letters that touch on everything from love and divorce to soccer and e-mail." You don't have to be an award-winning journalist to pass on your intellectual, spiritual, and human wealth to future generations.  Our clients do it through our Priceless Conversations program.  Once each year, we sit down with them for an informal conversation and record their answers to a series of questions we ask them.  The questions, on a subject they have chosen, are carefully designed to capture a part of their intellectual, spiritual, or human wealth.  We have these questions on more than 40 subjects, such as your love for your children, what you remember about your childhood and your grandparents, and what is most important to you in life. To learn more about Priceless Comnversations, call us at 330-9802 to make an appointment for a Family Wealth Planning Session.  We'll be glad to meet you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. June 6, 2008 Going Home The woman holding her child by the hand waiting to cross Cesar Chavez below Lamar looked strangely out of place.  Her long blue gingham dress and hairstyle was in stark contrast to the short shorts and headbands the other young women were wearing.  I knew immediately who she was -- one of the moms whose children had been taken away from her more than two months earlier in that raid on the Yearning for Zion ranch south of San Angelo.   Back on April 3rd, when the children were taken, I predicted that it would be a long time before they got out of the system.  Although, according to the Texas Supreme Court, there was never any credible evidence that any of the children were in danger, they had spent more than 2 months in foster care.  And, theirs was a very public case in which the process was greatly expedited.  If something happened to you and your children were swept into the foster care system, getting them out could take a very long time, especially if there was a dispute about who should be made their guardian.    Don’t expose your children to that risk.  Although the probability is small, the downside is horrendous!  And it doesn’t have to be that way.  Call us at 330-9802 to come in for a Family Wealth Planning Session to learn how you can protect your children.  We’ll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. Apeil 3, 2008 Hotel California In a massive raid today, DPS troopers acting on an anonymous tip swept into the Waiting for Zion ranch south of San Angelo and took custody of all they found who might be minors – more than 450 from infants to late teens.  All were turned over to Child Protective Services to be placed in foster care pending a District Court’s decision on whether they would be endangered by returning to their homes.   The wheels of justice turn slowly.  I predict that it will be many weeks before any of these children can be united with their families.  Why?  Because once a child enters the Texas foster care system, it can only escape if a District Judge determines that it is in its best interest to do so.  Child Protective Services assumes that the environment from which a child is removed is not the best placement.  Changing their or a Judge’s mind takes a long time and is very expensive.  It’s sort of like Hotel California – you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave. To make sure that your children don’t get swept into the Child Protective Services system if something happens to you, come in for a Family Wealth Planning Session.  Call us at 330-9802 to make an appointment.  We’ll be glad to see you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. March 31, 2008 Yet Another Celebrity Will Not Updated Story CNBC’s For the Love of Money: The Death of  Seth Tobias shown tonight (March 31) will focus on the mysterious death by drowning in a swimming pool last Labor Day of hedge fund manager and CNBC commentator Seth Tobias.  Mr. Tobais was married in March, 2005. Here’s a quote from the New York Magazine article Dead Man’s Float dated February 10, 2008: "In late September, Tobias’s will was read. The will, signed on May 12, 2004, divided Tobias’s estimated $25 million fortune between his brothers, parents, and friends.  Strangely, he had made no adjustment to the document after his 2005 marriage.  Under Florida law, this nullified the will and left his wife as sole inheritor of her fourth husband’s assets." This and the earlier-reported incidents are indicative of a greater national problem that exists - the current model for providing estate planning services in the United States is broken!  Even wealthy celebrities are victims of the mindset that estate planning is about form documents that can be prepared once and never looked at again.  As these cases highlight, that’s wrong. In reality, estate planning really has very little to do with form documents.  Think about this: standard estate planning form documents can be purchased on the internet for less than a few hundred bucks, prepared with the help of a do-it-yourself kit you can buy for as little as $13.50 or you could spend $2,750 to have the forms prepared for you by an Arizona lawyer who calls himself the Estate Planning Doctor. Here’s the amazing thing . . . whether you spend $13.50 or $2,750.00, at the end of the day all you end up with is documents that in many cases won’t work when your family needs them. What you want when it comes to estate planning is not a set of form documents.  What you want is a relationship with a personal lawyer who is going to guide you to make the best decision throughout your lifetime, be there for your family when you can’t be, and make sure your estate plan stays up to date so when you have a new baby, they know about it, the baby gets added to your plan and your plan works when your family needs it.  To find out who will get your property if you die without doing further planning, call us at 330-9802 to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session to discuss that very subject and much more. We'll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. March 14, 2008 Actor Heath Ledger’s Estate Planning Was Out of Date … No Mention of Daughter Matilda Rose or Her Mother Michelle Williams in Will.     New York, NY  Once again, another celebrity has died with an out-of-date Will.  Heath Ledger’s Will has been made public (as all Wills are public documents after death) and it turns out that the Will, made three years prior to his daughter’s birth, leaves everything to his parents and sister. We saw the same thing just over a year ago when Anna Nicole Smith died and her Will left everything to her deceased son and did          not mention her baby daughter, Dannielynn, or her long-time life/love partner, Howard K. Stern, who stuck by her through all of her ups and downs for years prior to her death. Heath’s parents have publicly assured that Matilda will be well taken care of and she’s likely to be determined a Heath heir because she was born to him after his Will was written.  You may recall that a Los Angeles Court has established Dannielynn as Anna Nicole’s sole heir.  Therefore, in the end these kids will be taken care of for now, but that is only part of the story First off, neither Michelle Williams, Matilda’s mother, nor Howard K. Stern, Anna Nicole’s long-time life/partner, were provided for.  The law doesn’t make any provision for those who are not relatives, descendants, or spouses.  Would Heath and Anna really have wanted Michelle and Howard to get nothing?  We’ll never know.   Second, while Matilda Rose and Dannielynn will ultimately inherit from their parents due to the later child laws noted above, Heath and Anna lost out on the chance to decide the terms under which their babies would receive the money they left behind and to name who would take care of that money until they received it.  So, when each turns 18, he or she will get everything that is left – in cash, to do with as he or she determines fit with his or her 18-year-old maturity.  And that windfall and its timing will be very well known to the unscrupulous.   These incidents are indicative of a greater national problem that exists - the current model for providing estate planning services in the United States is broken!  Even wealthy celebrities are victims of the mindset that estate planning is about form documents that can be prepared once and never looked at again.  As these cases highlight, that’s wrong. In reality, estate planning really has very little to do with form documents.  Think about this: standard estate planning form documents can be purchased on the internet for less than a few hundred bucks, prepared with the help of a do-it-yourself kit you can buy for as little as $13.50 or you could spend $2,750 to have the forms prepared for you by an Arizona lawyer who calls himself the Estate Planning Doctor. Here’s the amazing thing . . . whether you spend $13.50 or $2,750.00, at the end of the day all you end up with is documents that in many cases won’t work when your family needs them. What you want when it comes to estate planning is not a set of form documents.  What you want is a relationship with a personal lawyer who is going to guide you to make the best decision throughout your lifetime, be there for your family when you can’t be, and make sure your estate plan stays up to date so when you have a new baby, they know about it, the baby gets added to your plan and your plan works when your family needs it.   To find out who will get your property if you die without doing further planning, call us at 330-9802 to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session to discuss that very subject and much more. We'll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. March 13, 2008 Senate Passes Estate Tax Plan – House Action Uncertain Washington, DC.  The Senate today voted 99 to 1 for an amendment to its version of a Congressional budget that would authorize tax legislation to permanently reform the estate tax at a $3.5 million/individual ($7 million for a married couple) exemption and a 45 percent top rate.  It rejected two other estate tax amendments--each crafted slightly differently, but both with $5 million/individual ($10 million married) exemption and a 35 percent top rate.    The budget authority to craft estate tax rules that set the exemption from estate tax liability at $3.5 million a person, and the top estate tax rate at 45 percent, was part of a larger tax amendment offered by Senate Finance Committee chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-MT).   The Congressional budget will determine the rules by which tax legislation will be considered by the Congress later this year.  However, the budget is not binding and it is not law.  Thus, inclusion in the budget of authority for a tax bill that sets the top estate tax rate at 45 percent and the personal exemption at $3.5 million establishes a sense of what the Senate thinks it would approve (particularly in light of the 99 to 1 vote by which it passed).  It does not guarantee it will be enacted into law.  The only votes that will really are the ones on the actual tax reform bill (if there is one) that goes to the Senate floor, perhaps this fall, but maybe not until next year.  Depends on how the election looks as the time to vote approaches.   We will see what happens as the Senate and House try to reconcile their differing versions of the budget.  That will begin in April, after the two-week Waster (spring) recess.   As Yogi Berra famously said, “This is like déjà vu all over again.”  As the Republicans and Democrats vie for strategic position for the upcoming election, there is no telling what will happen to tax reform.  Spin, spin, spin.  Don’t count out those powerful forces (the ultra wealthy) who don’t see much benefit from a larger exemption and really want a lower top rate because that will save them much more.   Our best guess is that the issue will spill over into 2009 before it is resolved and might still be deadlocked then.  Advice – Don’t hold your breath or count your chickens before they are hatched.  Stay flexible.  To find out more, call us at 330-9802 to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session to discuss that very subject and much more. We'll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone who calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting. March 1, 2008 Austin Attorney Earns Prestigious Designation San Francisco, CA - Austin attorney Dick Terrell Brown was honored with the Family Wealth Practice Institute's coveted “Personal Family Lawyer” (PFL) designation in a ceremony held March 1st.  The PFL designation is awarded to estate planning lawyers who have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to their communities by providing sound legal advice that helps individuals and families make the best decisions in their personal, business, legal and financial affairs throughout their lifetime. Members of the PFL network focus on the needs of growing families to ensure life-long enjoyment of prosperity and financial security, without the traditional hourly billing associated with working with an attorney.  They provide the guidance of a trusted advisor throughout, and at the end of, life to guarantee all assets are secured for the future of their clients’ families.  Currently, only 47 other lawyers in the USA have received this designation. “I’m thrilled to be included in this elite group of lawyers.  I love helping people, being their trusted advisor, and helping them make the best financial decisions for their family for a lifetime.  It is my joy to develop real, personal, lasting relationship with my clients and not simply be involved with them in an hourly-fee document preparation transaction.  I’m very fortunate and honored,” says Brown. If you are interested in finding out if you can have Dick Terrell Brown as your own Personal Family Lawyer™, CLICK HERE.  January 30, 2008 Will Trouble For months the news has been full of stories about billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley’s will providing a $12 million bequest for the care of her beloved 8-year-old white Maltese, “Trouble.”  The stories also talk about possible challenges to Mrs. Helmsley’s will by her descendants.  If curious, you can read Mrs. Helmsley’s Will.  That's because once a Will is filed for probate, it is a matter of public record - open to anyone.  While the New York Times is unlikely to be so interested in what you leave to whom, the predators prowling the public records might certainly be interested in what your widow or your children get when you die.  And in Travis County, “public” means “on the internet” so they don’t even have to go to the courthouse – they can snoop from anywhere in the world!  When asked why Mrs. Helmsley’s plan was allowed to become public, her lawyer responded that he did will-based estate plans.  Unfortunately, that is the same mindset many lawyers – even those in big, prestigious firms in tall buildings still have.  But it does not have to be that way!   Our clients base their plans on living trusts, which are private agreements that do not become a public record.  The assets that pass by the terms of a trust are not probate assets and do not appear on the sworn inventory that has to be filed in a will probate case.  To explore having a private plan to protect your heirs, call for your Family Wealth Planning Session – 330-9802.  We’ll be glad to hear from you!  Our standard charge for a Family Wealth Planning Session is $750, but we will waive it for anyone wwho calls or contacts us through this web site withing 10 days of the date of this blog posting.