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Have you ever searched your name or the name of a loved one on the Michigan Unclaimed Property webpage? We always do a name search when a family retains our firm after a loved one has died, and I even search my own name every few years. The Unclaimed…
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You may have noticed that the IRS has been pushing us more and more toward electronic filings, as opposed to paper. Up until now, most nonprofits have escaped that push. That exemption from electronic filing requirements vanished this summer, however…
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Michigan courts have authored several landmark decisions having national significance. One of the most famous is Pond v. People, which clarified the principle of self-defense and the defense of others. In 1859, Augustus Pond and his family spent the…
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If you are in business, there are plenty of good reasons to set up a corporation or a limited liability company. High on that list is the ability to prevent a competitor from stealing your business name. So long as your corporation or limited liabili…
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I’m constantly amazed at the number of ways that people can mess up real estate transactions. Just this past week, two particularly striking examples crossed my desk. The first was an easement agreement prepared by one attorney and reviewed by a se…
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Scams can be big and bold, small and pesky, or anything in between. Here are a couple that probably qualify as small and pesky, yet are of interest because they target us here in Michigan: The Principal Residence Exemption (PRE), which gives Michigan…
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We can each gift unlimited wealth to our spouses without having to pay gift tax. In addition, we can each make lifetime gifts totaling $11,400,000 to people other than our spouses before gift tax kicks in. This number is indexed for inflation, so it…
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Occasionally, clients will bring us legal documents that they created using an online service. It happened again a couple of weeks ago when long-time clients of mine came in for a trust review. I learned when we met that they had used a popular onlin…
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I always impress upon estate planning clients the importance of updating their homeowners’ insurance after conveying real estate to a trust, even if the transfer is via a “ladybird deed” that doesn’t take effect until the client is deceased.…
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In Michigan, any document that says who gets what after one’s death and that meets specific requirements constitutes a valid will. There are exceptions to this general rule, however, allowing certain less formal documents to also qualify as wills.…
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