By Harry S. Margolis

Ahh, the vacation house.

The locus of so many family memories. The place where everyone can get away from their busy lives, relax and spend time with other family members.

Or.

The focus of family disputes over maintenance, finances, and use.

How can you assure the former and avoid the latter?

By Harry S. Margolis

While everyone's desires and circumstances are different, most people upon retirement or later face the issue of whether to stay in their homes or move, whether to a smaller house or apartment, to a 55 and over community, or to get out of northern winters. Some people want relief from the headaches and expense of maintaining a house, not to mention the lawn in front, while others don't want to leave the home or community where they've lived for decades and raised their families.

By Harry S. Margolis

When you die, your possessions will go to your heirs. Savings and investments are easy to divide up since they can be turned into cash. While real estate is more difficult, it can be turned into cash by selling it or co-owners can share it. But the most difficult items to divvy up are your personal possessions -- silverware, dishes, artwork, furniture, tools, jewelry -- that are unique rather than fungible. In legal speak these are known as "tangible personal property" and  can become the focus of family feuds, often one or more children claiming that a parent had promised them a particular item.

By Harry S. Margolis

I recently wrote about the standards for determining undue influence and questioning the value of consulting with a neuropsychologist to determine capacity to sign a legal document. But what is the standard for incapacity?

The answer is that it's a moving target, often depending on the situation and the document to be signed. Further, in the absence of indications of undue influence the attorney should be inclined to assist a client with questionable capacity to execute estate planning documents rather than refusing to assist the client.

Testamentary Capacity

Here's the legal standard for "testamentary" capacity, the capacity to sign a will:

By Harry S. Margolis

Most people who create trusts for estate planning and asset protection purposes serve as their own trustees during life and then prefer family members to step in if they become incapacitated or to serve for trusts that continue after the grantor's death. Family member trustees keep things private and save money since professional trustees, whether a lawyer, a bank or a trust company, usually charge charge fees of 1.0% to 1.2% of the trust assets per year, often a higher percentage for smaller trusts -- under $1 million -- and a lower percentage for larger ones -- over $2 million.

The use of a professional trustee also means a loss of control for family members and sometimes a loss of continuity when the trust officers for a larger bank or trust company change over time. In addition, if an individual attorney is serving as trustee, there's a risk of a loss of continuity or a gap if the trustee falls ill, passes away, or retires.

Benefits of Professional Trustees

So, with all of these downsides of using a professional trustee, what are the advantages? And how can you mitigate some of the potential drawbacks?

By Harry S. Margolis

The Alzheimer's Association has released its annual report, Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures, which as usual contains some daunting figures, especially as Baby Boomers age and we hear the latest news story of an unsuccessful drug trial. Here are some of the results:

• 5.8 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which is projected to increase to 14 million by 2050.
• The annual cost of the illness is $290 billion, which is projected to rise to $1 trillion by 2050 (in current dollars). Medicare and Medicaid currently pay $195 billion of this cost
• More than 16 million Americans provide unpaid care to family members with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia providing an estimated 18.5 billion hours of care valued at $234 billion.

By Harry S. Margolis

Don't all the conveniences of life sometimes seem just to make life more complicated? This is nowhere more true than with respect to the internet. Whether or not we spend half our lives responding to devices, we all transact a lot of our daily business on line, buying stuff on Amazon, paying our bills through on-line bank programs, stocking up and using airline miles, reallocating our investments, saving photos, watching movies, or planning trips. And that's not even mentioning social media, such as Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, or dating sites.

So, what happens to all your connections and information if you become disabled or die? Who has access? Who do you want to have access, to which sites? For instance, you may want your children to be able to access your financial accounts, but not your dating site.

By Harry S. Margolis

Most people don't move when they retire, instead staying where they have lived all their lives and where they have the strongest personal and family connections. So, they must either hope that their towns and cities are good places to age in terms of the services they provide or work actively to improve those services. In my own town of Brookline, the Brookline Community Aging Network takes the latter approach, working actively "to ensure that older Brookline residents remain a vital part of the town's social, cultural, and civic life."

Others choose to move after they retire, whether full-time or for part of the year. They may move for a better climate, often during the winter, for a lower cost of living, or to be near family members, especially grandchildren. But if you can move anywhere in the world, where should you move?

By Harry S. Margolis

As long as we are 18 or over and have our wits together, we all have the right to make our own health care decisions. But what happens when we become incapacitated, whether temporarily or permanently, and cannot make such decisions?

Then, legally, only a court-appointed guardian or an agent under a health care proxy can make decisions for us. In an emergency, medical providers can take measures to keep us alive, but once the emergency has passed no one has the right to step in and make decisions in the absence of a health care proxy or guardianship appointment.