Attorney Suzanne Sayward

Estate Planning for Out of State Real Estate

August 9, 2023 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

Attorney Suzanne Sayward discusses Estate Planning for Out of State Real Estate, for our Smart Counsel for Lunch Series. Please watch and if you have any questions or want to learn more please call us at 781 461-1020.

What’s Love Got to do with it? – Estate planning for Second Marriages

June 20, 2023 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

As June is sometimes referred to as ‘wedding season’, what better time to talk about critical planning for those who dip their toes into the legal status of ‘married’ for the second (or third, or fourth) time.

Marriage is not just about declaring your love in the presence of your family and friends. Marriage is a legal contract which creates certain rights and obligations under the law for those who enter into that contract. While most people understand that divorce results in a couple’s assets being divided between them as a court determines if they cannot agree to terms themselves, not everyone is aware that marriage creates rights in a surviving spouse as well, and unlike divorce, it doesn’t matter whether it was a 2-week long marriage or a 2-decade long marriage.

Death without a Will

When someone dies without a Will in place they are said to have died ‘intestate’ and their probate estate will be distributed under the intestate laws of the state in which they were domiciled at the time of death. If a married person dies intestate, the determination of the share of the probate estate that will pass to the surviving spouse is based on the decedent’s other family members who survive. For example, if husband dies leaving wife and children surviving and all of the couple’s children are children of their marriage, then husband’s entire estate will pass to the surviving spouse. However, if either husband or wife has a child from a prior marriage/relationship, then the amount passing to the surviving spouse is the first $100,000 plus 50% of the remaining probate estate.

Death with a Will

A Will is the estate planning document that controls the distribution of a person’s probate estate. If you do not want the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to dictate the distribution of your estate, then make a Will that sets out your wishes. Under the Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code (enacted in 2012) even a Will made prior to a new marriage remains valid where that Will leaves assets to the decedent’s children.

But Beware the Spousal Elective Share

However, even if a deceased spouse leaves a Will, there is a Massachusetts statute that grants a surviving spouse the right to ‘take against the Will’ of the deceased spouse and claim the so-called spousal share. Similar to the intestate share, the amount of the spousal share depends on who are the other surviving family members of the decedent. For example, if the decedent left descendants, then the surviving spouse would be entitled to $25,000 and a ‘life estate’ in one-third of the remaining estate. While this law is intended to protect a surviving spouse from being disinherited, the effect of this statute can be to wreak havoc on an estate plan in a second marriages and can feel especially unfair in short-term marriages.

What’s the Solution?

As with so many things, the solution lies in advance planning. A prenuptial agreement which is properly entered into before the marriage, is the best way to make sure that both parties’ intentions are carried out. This allows the parties, and not the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to determine how their assets will be distributed in the event of divorce or death.

If we can be of help to you with these or other estate planning or estate and trust administration matters, please contact our office to schedule an appointment to meet with one of our attorneys.

Attorney Suzanne R. Sayward is a partner with the Dedham firm of Samuel, Sayward & Baler LLC which focuses on advising its clients in the areas of estate planning, estate settlement and elder law matters. She is certified as an Elder Law Attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation, a private organization whose standards for certification are not regulated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This article is not intended to provide legal advice or create or imply an attorney-client relationship. No information contained herein is a substitute for a personal consultation with an attorney. For more information visit www.ssbllc.com or call 781/461-1020.

June, 2023

Smart Counsel Series – The Do’s and Don’ts of Serving as a Trustee – A Study in Contrasts

May 18, 2023 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

Please watch our pre-recorded webinar in our Smart Counsel Series which aired on Thursday, May 18, 2023 virtually via Zoom. Attorneys Suzanne R. Sayward and Megan L. Bartholomew presented the Do’s and Don’ts of serving as a Trustee.

If you have been named to serve as Trustee for a family member or friend, or if you have created a Trust in which you have named someone to serve in that role should you become incapacitated or when you pass away, you may be wondering what is involved in taking on such a commitment. The answer is – A LOT!

The presenters discussed the specific tasks a Trustee must undertake along with the general duties and responsibilities of a Trustee. Examples of the right way – and the wrong way – of carrying out the duties of serving as a Trustee can help you understand what is involved in serving in this important role.

5 Reasons to Engage an Elder Law Attorney

May 2, 2023 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

May is Elder Law Month and was established by the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) as a way to bring attention to the particular legal needs of the older adult community. While all adults should create an estate plan to ensure that their wishes are carried out if they become incapacitated or when they pass away, the needs and concerns of older adults are different than those of younger people. Elder law attorneys are attuned to the issues that impact older adults and skilled at addressing those issues. Read on for five reasons why engaging an elder law attorney as you age is important.

1. A Durable Power of Attorney is a legal document in which the maker (the Principal), designates a person (the Attorney-in-fact) to have the authority to manage the Principal’s financial affairs. For estate planning purposes, a Durable Power of Attorney is created to insure that should the Principal become incapacitated, the Attorney-in-fact will have the legal authority to act on behalf of the Principal with respect to legal and financial affairs and non-medical matters. For many older adults, protecting assets from having to be spent down on long-term care costs is important. In order to ensure that their Attorney-in-fact has the authority to undertake long-term care planning, a Power of Attorney must specifically authorize actions that are typically needed to protect assets from spend down. These include granting the Attorney-in-fact the authority to make gifts of the Principal’s assets, create an irrevocable Trust, and so-called ‘self-dealing’ authority. Elder law attorneys are knowledgeable about the importance of these provisions for older adults.

2. Older adults often worry about protecting assets from the high cost of long-term care; something that is not a concern for younger people. Elder law attorneys can advise clients about their options for protecting assets from having to be spent down on long-term care costs along the with the advantages and consequences of such planning.

3. As they age, parents may feel more financially secure – the children are grown and living on their own, college is paid for, there is no longer a mortgage on the house – which may make them more inclined to make gifts to children and grandchildren. While most estate planning attorneys are skilled in advising clients about the tax aspects of gifting, elder law attorneys will also advise clients about the impact that gifting will have on their eligibility for long-term care benefits. This can avoid a serious ‘trap for the unwary’ in the event long-term care benefits are needed.

4. Long-term care insurance can be an excellent ‘tool’ in a person’s long-term care planning tool-box. While elder law attorneys do not sell long-term care insurance, they often work closely with individuals who are specialists in long-term care insurance. Elder law attorneys can advise clients as to how long-term care insurance would work as part of a long-term strategy for payment of care costs as the client ages.

5. Health Care documents consisting of Health Care Proxies, Living Wills and HIPAA Authorizations are important components of every estate plan. For seniors, making sure that their Health Care Proxy includes provisions permitting their appointed agent to make decisions regarding end-of-life care, administration of certain types of medications, and to contract for care givers or care facilities on behalf of the Principal is critical to ensuring that trusted family members, and not a probate court, are the ones making decisions in times of crisis.
Making sure that one’s affairs are in order is a primary goal of estate planning. For older adults, working with an elder law attorney means working with an attorney who is attuned to their particular legal needs. If you are an older adult, ‘celebrate’ Elder Law Month by contacting an elder law attorney to review your estate plan documents to ensure they are consistent with your current goals and concerns.

Attorney Suzanne R. Sayward is a partner with the Dedham law firm of Samuel, Sayward & Baler LLC which focuses on advising its clients in the areas of estate planning, estate settlement and elder law matters. She is certified as an Elder Law Attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation, a private organization whose standards for certification are not regulated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This article is not intended to provide legal advice or create or imply an attorney-client relationship. No information contained herein is a substitute for a personal consultation with an attorney. For more information visit our website at www.ssbllc.com or call 781/461-1020.

May, 2023

The Slayer Rule

March 7, 2023 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

Attorney Suzanne Sayward discusses The Slayer Rule, for our Smart Counsel for Lunch Series. Please watch and if you have any questions or want to learn more please call us at 781 461-1020.

Estate Planning Drama & Challenges

February 15, 2023 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

Attorney Suzanne Sayward discusses Estate Planning Drama and Challenges, for our Smart Counsel for Lunch Series. Please watch and if you have any questions or want to learn more please call us at 781 461-1020.

To our Clients and Friends:

Please join us for the next presentation in our Smart Counsel Series on Thursday, February 23, 2023, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. virtually via Zoom, hosted by Attorney Maria Baler.

Bob Folsom of Folsom Funeral Services with locations in Dedham, Westwood and Norwood, will be here to discuss everything you wanted to know about funeral arrangements but were afraid to ask! Should you pre-arrange or pre-pay for your funeral and how? What happens when a person dies at home or in the hospital? What choices do families need to make after someone has died if no pre-arrangements are made? How are the Directives you leave taken into account when funeral arrangements are made? And what are Green Burials all about? Bob will give us an overview of green burial options, explain a “modified” green burial, and will discuss the availability of green burials locally and further afield.

We will also be joined by Liz Sandeman, who has been volunteering with New England Donor Services for 8 years, ever since her sister died waiting for a lung transplant. Last year she was awarded the National Donate Life America Ambassador Service Award. She is a frequent speaker at local senior centers, driving schools, community organizations, high schools, hospitals, health fairs, road races and community events. She is the current co-chair of the Massachusetts Lions Organ Donor Awareness program.

Attorney Baler will discuss how we incorporate our clients’ wishes about funeral arrangements and organ donation into the legal documents we prepare for them. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions of all speakers. Contact Kenzie Sayward at 781/461-1020 or kenzie@ssbllc.com to reserve a spot for you and a friend.

Suzanne R. Sayward
Maria C. Baler
Abigail V. Poole
Megan L. Bartholomew

Five Estate Planning Resolutions for the New Year

January 4, 2023 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

It’s that time of year again when we resolve to do better in the coming year than we did in the past year. Exercise regularly, eat healthy, and get better sleep are common January pledges. The new year is also a good time to resolve to take action on your estate plan. Read on for five estate planning resolutions for 2023.

1. Create or Update your Estate Plan

If you don’t currently have an estate plan (Will, Power of Attorney, health care documents and maybe a Trust), resolve to remedy that situation in 2023. Creating an estate plan is important for everyone age 18 and older. Even if your assets are modest, it is vital to appoint people who are legally authorized to make decisions for and about you if you experience a period of incapacity. If you have young children, a large estate, a beneficiary with disabilities, a second marriage, multiple properties, or other more complex situations, a Trust may be advisable to meet your planning goals. If you have an estate plan but it has been more than five years since you reviewed your plan, resolve to meet with your estate planning attorney to review and update your plan as needed.

2. Check your Beneficiary Designations

Many of your most significant assets – life insurance, retirement accounts, annuities – will be paid to a designated beneficiary at your death. Properly designating those beneficiaries is more complicated than it may appear. If you have minor children to provide for, or if you want to benefit a person with disabilities who receives, or may receive, needs-based governmental benefits, it is best that assets pay to a Trust for those beneficiaries. Understanding how distributions from retirement accounts work after the death of the account owner, and how different beneficiary designations will impact the size, frequency and income tax payable on those distributions is crucial to making appropriate designations. Ensuring your beneficiary designations are consistent with your overall estate plan is critical to accomplishing your estate planning goals.

3. Resolve to Fund your Trust

If you have created a Living Trust as part of your estate plan, follow through and retitle your assets as directed by your estate planning attorney. Two of the main reasons for creating Trusts include probate avoidance and estate tax savings. However, your Trust will not achieve these goals if you do not change the ownership of your assets during your lifetime from your individual (or joint) names to the name of your Trust. There is no question that this can be a time-consuming task since it may involve meeting with a customer service representative at the bank, calling financial institutions to determine the process for making the change, completing the paperwork, and then following up with the companies to confirm that the changes have been properly instituted. However, these steps are essential to the success of your plan. If you are not able to accomplish the trust funding tasks, contact your estate planning attorney to obtain assistance. Many estate planning law firms offer trust funding services.

4. Provide copies of your Health Care Documents to your Health Care Agent

Documents expressing wishes regarding end-of-life-care and instructions regarding medical treatment are a vital part of every estate plan. In Massachusetts, these often include a Health Care Proxy and a Living Will. A Health Care Proxy is the legal document used to appoint the person who will make health care decisions for you if you are not able to do so. The appointed individual is called your Health Care Agent. A Living Will is not a binding legal document in Massachusetts but is used as a way to express a person’s wish that extraordinary medical measures not be used to prolong life in circumstances where death is imminent. Once signed, copies of these documents should be provided to your Health Care Agent and a copy of your Health Care Proxy should be given to your primary care physician’s office as well as to any other doctors who regularly treat you. We recommend that you provide these documents to your Health Care Agent electronically. That way your Health Care Agent can save those electronic copies on their phone or in their cloud-storage service (Dropbox, Google drive, etc.) so that they are immediately accessible. You should save your own Health Care Proxy, as well as the Proxies of anyone for whom you may be named as Health Care Agent, on your phone or in the cloud as well.

5. Organize your Financial Records

A primary purpose of estate planning is to make it easier for people to help you if you become incapacitated and to ease the burden on the people who will be dealing with your estate when you pass away. One of the greatest gifts you can give the people you have named to these positions, is the gift of well-organized records. We handle a lot of estate and trust settlement matters in my office and one of the hardest parts for family members or others named as fiduciaries is finding information about assets: bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, pensions, life insurance, etc. The same is true for debts and monthly bills. This problem has become worse as more and more people move to paperless status for their accounts and bill pay. Keeping an up-to-date list of all of your accounts and a file folder with a paper copy of a recent statement will be incredibly helpful to the person who is trying to manage these for you. Set up a file with folders for your life insurance, long-term care insurance, each retirement account, your pension, each bank account, etc. Do the same for your bills and don’t forget bills that are paid less frequently than monthly such as annual life insurance, homeowner’s insurance, etc. Create a folder for your car with a copy of the registration, the title or lease agreement, auto insurance, car loan, etc. If you have records that are only stored electronically such as income tax returns, create a folder and include information about how to access those electronic records. Start in January and add to it each month and by next December you will have compiled a complete set of your records.

Good luck with the dieting, exercising and sleeping better in 2023. If we can help with your estate planning, please contact our office to schedule a time to speak with one of our attorneys. Happy New Year and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2023!

January, 2023

‘Tis the Season for Gifting

December 27, 2022 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

The end of the year is often a time when people think about making gifts to loved ones for the holidays or for year-end tax planning. Since we are in December, what better time to talk about the Gift Tax?

Here are a few things to know about the gift tax.

Since there is no gift tax in Massachusetts, residents of the commonwealth need only be concerned about the federal gift tax.
There are two ‘exemptions’ or ‘freebies’ under the federal gift tax law:
- The Annual Gift Tax Exclusion is the amount that each person may gift to any number of other individuals without any impact on the giver’s Lifetime Gift Tax Exemption. In 2022, the Annual Gift Tax Exclusion amount is $16,000. As of January 1, 2023, the Annual Gift Tax Exclusion amount will be $17,000. Gifts to any one person in a calendar year in excess of the Annual Gift Tax Exclusion amount will reduce the giver’s Lifetime Gift Tax Exemption by the amount in excess of the Annual Exclusion.
- In addition to the Annual Gift Tax Exclusion, each person has a Lifetime Gift Tax Exemption. This Lifetime Exemption is the amount that each person may gift over and above the annual exclusion gifts. In 2022, the Lifetime Exemption is $12,060,000. As of January 1, 2023, the Lifetime Gift Tax Exemption will be $12.9 million.
There is no limit on the amount you may give to your U.S. citizen spouse free of any federal gift tax. There is an annual exclusion limitation for gifts to non-U.S. citizen spouses. This amount is $164,000 in 2022 and $175,000 in 2023.
There is no limit on the amount you may pay on behalf of any individual for tuition or medical expenses, provided these payments are made directly to the educational or medical institution.
There is no gift tax payable on gifts to qualified charities.

The gift tax is not the only tax to take into consideration when thinking about making large gifts; there may be income tax, estate tax, and capital gain tax consequences. And of course, taxes are not the only concern when making large gifts – there may be long-term care ramifications, concerns about a recipient’s ability to handle a large sum, and worries about potential threats to the gift by the recipient’s creditors (divorcing spouse, failed business, lawsuit, etc.). If you are considering making large gifts to family members, talk with your estate plan attorney to make sure you have a good understanding of all of the consequences.

December, 2022

Happy Holidays from Samuel, Sayward & Baler LLC (Including Our Version of The Twelve Days of Holiday Estate Planning)

December 21, 2022 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

Hello and Welcome to this week’s Holiday Edition of Smart Counsel for Lunch. We want to wish you all a happy holiday and healthy new year! Please enjoy our holiday message along with an additional video below on the Twelve Days of Holiday Estate Planning.

Please enjoy our video on The Twelve Days of Holiday Estate Planning.

Irrevocable Trusts & Gifting

November 29, 2022 by Attorney Suzanne Sayward

Attorney Suzanne Sayward discusses Irrevocable Trusts & Gifting, for this edition of our Smart Counsel for Lunch Series. Please watch and if you have any questions or want to learn more please call us at 781 461-1020.