Ocean County Estate Planning Blog

One of the most valuable assets you have is likely a piece of property, such as your main residence, or a beach house you offer as a vacation rental.

When you think about estate planning, the transfer of real property may be uppermost in your mind. What is the best way to approach this? Here are two ideas you may wish to explore.

Perhaps the most important element of estate planning in Ocean County is actually choosing to do it. It is a decision that many American adults have yet to make (indeed, according to research information shared by the American Association of Retired Persons, 6 in 10 have no estate planning documents). Those who die without a will force their estates to become subject to intestate succession. This is a state-controlled process in which the dispersal of one's assets are regulated by the law (and not the wishes of their heirs). 

New Jersey's intestate succession regulations can be found in Section 3B.5 of the state's General Statutes. According to the law, one's surviving spouse would inherit the entire amount of their intestate estate if a decedent has no surviving descendants (or if their surviving descendants are also the direct descendants of the surviving spouse). If one or more of one's descendants are not those of the surviving spouse, or if the surviving spouse also has descendants that are not related to the decedent, then the surviving spouse is entitled to the first 25 percent of the estate's assets (not be less than $50,000 or greater than $200,000), plus 50 percent of the remaining amount of the estate. They would also be entitled to the first 25 percent if the decedent is survived by their parents (but no descendants). Their entitlement to the remaining amount of the estate would then increase to 75 percent. 

When some people picture the type of person who sets up an estate plan, they may envision someone who is wealthy and owns a considerable amount of property. To be sure, estate plans are especially important for people in this position, but even low-income individuals benefit from estate plans. By setting up a will or creating a trust, those with low incomes are able to not only protect what they have but make things easier for their loved ones down the road. Moreover, there are other aspects of estate planning, such as power of attorney, which can be extremely important regardless of how much money one makes or their net worth.

Some people assume that because they are facing financial challenges, setting up an estate plan is unimportant. Regrettably, this can complicate things for their family members when they pass away. Creating an estate plan can help you take control of your assets and how they are managed later on, and your loved ones may be very grateful that you took the time to take these matters into consideration beforehand.

The process of estate planning in Ocean County is a fluid one that is not necessarily complete with the drafting of a will or other estate management instruments. Circumstances will certainly change over time, which could cause one to rethink earlier decisions and revise their estate documents to reflect their current wishes. The question then becomes which provisions are valid: those that were made initially or the revisions? 

Such is the question being raised in a dispute between a publishing company and the estate of the renowned novelist Harper Lee. In a claim filed against the Lee estate, representatives of the publishing company say that the author gave permission to its playwriter back in 1969 to create a stage adaptation of the novel . However, prior to her death, Lee gave permission to another producer in 2015 to come up with an updated version (which is currently being performed on Broadway). The 2015 agreement reportedly amended the terms of the one created in 1969, barring the earlier adaption from being performed in areas where the current one is running.