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While some of those TV commercials for free credit-score report companies are pretty funny, having errors on your credit report is no laughing matter. Indeed, your credit score is one of the main factors determining your access to loans, credit cards, housing, and sometimes even jobs.

From late payments that were actually made on time and paid debts that are still listed in collections to fake accounts opened in your name by identity thieves, there are all kinds of errors that can end up in your report. What’s more, even if the mistakes were made by the banks, lenders, and/or credit bureaus, they have no obligation to fix them—unless you report them.

Given this, it’s vital to monitor your credit score regularly and take immediate action to have any errors corrected. Here, we’ll discuss a few of the most common mistakes found in credit reports and how to fix them.

If anything is inaccurate on your report, file a dispute with the credit bureaus as soon as possible. In fact, notifying these agencies is a prerequisite if you eventually decide to take legal action. Note that if a mistake appears on more than one report, you’ll need to file a dispute with each credit bureau involved.

To ensure your dispute has the best chances of success, follow these steps:

• Use the appropriate forms: Each credit bureau has different processes for filing a dispute—whether via regular mail or online—so check the particular bureau’s website for instructions and forms. You can find sample letters showing how to dispute credit reports on the FTC and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) websites.
• Be absolutely clear: Clearly identify each disputed item in your report, state the facts explaining why the information is incorrect, and request a deletion or correction. If you’ve found multiple errors, include an itemized list of each one.
• Provide evidence: It’s not enough to just say there’s a mistake; you should substantiate your claim with proof. Collect all documents related to the account, including account statements, letters, emails, and legal correspondence. Include copies (never originals) of this paperwork, and highlight or circle the relevant information.
• Contact credit providers: In addition to the credit bureaus, the CFPB recommends you also contact the credit providers that supplied the incorrect information to the bureaus. Check with the particular company to learn how to file a dispute, and then send it the same documentation to them that you sent to the bureaus.
• Review the results of the investigation: Credit bureaus typically get back to you within a month, but their response can take up to 45 days. The response will tell you if the disputed item was deleted, fixed, or remains the same. Disputes basically boil down to whether or not the creditor agrees with your claim or not, and what they say typically goes.

If anything is inaccurate on your report, file a dispute with the credit bureaus as soon as possible. In fact, notifying these agencies is a prerequisite if you eventually decide to take legal action. Note that if a mistake appears on more than one report, you’ll need to file a dispute with each credit bureau involved.

To ensure your dispute has the best chances of success, follow these steps:

• Use the appropriate forms: Each credit bureau has different processes for filing a dispute—whether via regular mail or online—so check the particular bureau’s website for instructions and forms. You can find sample letters showing how to dispute credit reports on the FTC and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) websites.
• Be absolutely clear: Clearly identify each disputed item in your report, state the facts explaining why the information is incorrect, and request a deletion or correction. If you’ve found multiple errors, include an itemized list of each one.
• Provide evidence: It’s not enough to just say there’s a mistake; you should substantiate your claim with proof. Collect all documents related to the account, including account statements, letters, emails, and legal correspondence. Include copies (never originals) of this paperwork, and highlight or circle the relevant information.
• Contact credit providers: In addition to the credit bureaus, the CFPB recommends you also contact the credit providers that supplied the incorrect information to the bureaus. Check with the particular company to learn how to file a dispute, and then send it the same documentation to them that you sent to the bureaus.
• Review the results of the investigation: Credit bureaus typically get back to you within a month, but their response can take up to 45 days. The response will tell you if the disputed item was deleted, fixed, or remains the same. Disputes basically boil down to whether or not the creditor agrees with your claim or not, and what they say typically goes.

If you’re not happy with the result of the dispute or how the dispute was handled, you can file a complaint with the CFPB, which regulates the credit bureaus. They’ll forward your complaint to the credit provider and update you on the response they receive.

If the credit provider insists the information is accurate, you can provide the bureaus with a statement summarizing your dispute and request they include it in your file, in future reports, and to anyone who received a copy of the old report in the recent past.

Finally, if the investigation isn’t resolved to your satisfaction and the inaccurate information in your credit report is causing you harm, contact us to determine if taking legal action would be worthwhile. We can review the information, and if necessary, help you develop and litigate your case.

We can help get your credit in top shape by guiding you to put  the proper legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems in place to secure your family’s financial future.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

When launching a startup, one of your most pressing matters is getting your company’s name and identity out there—and having people remember it. But in many industries, getting your business recognized among a sea of competitors can be a daunting task.

Like it or not, your company’s success and failure could be largely a matter of image. To this end, having an awesome logo could help. Depending on your industry, a well-designed logo will not only make a memorable first impression, it can also help build legitimacy, loyalty, and longevity.

The following concepts are essential for both creating a logo that will immediately grab a potential customer’s attention and also ensuring you have the legal support to protect the investment you make in your identity.

Since a logo is one of the very first things people will notice about your company, its primary purpose is to get people to identify that symbol with your brand. Think of a logo as a distinctive flag or signature: it’s about making your business brand stand out from the rest and be instantly recognizable.

A logo isn’t necessarily aimed at describing your business or even identifying what it sells. After all, what the heck does a talking gecko have to do with car insurance? What does a partially eaten apple say about computers? It’s simply about etching that symbol onto your customer’s consciousness, so your ideal clients will remember and recognize your logo  whenever they see it, reinforcing consistency and trust.

When designing your logo, focus on creating a noteworthy image first and names or slogans second. That’s not to say that your name or slogan can’t be an important part of the logo, but since our memories are largely visually based, aim to make the overarching imagery as distinctive as possible.

The cool thing about logos is not every company uses them, but those that do often appear more professional and reputable. Indeed, even if you’re running your business out of your garage (like Apple once did) a slick logo can immediately inspire trust, admiration, and superiority—even if you feel like you’re still winging it.

Another vital element with logos is consistency. You should place your logo everywhere your business is represented or even mentioned. This is especially important online, where attracting eyeballs is the name of the game and attention spans last milliseconds. To this end, place your logo prominently on your website, online advertising, social media, email signature, and all marketing materials.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for businesses and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer a LIFT Start-Up Session™ or a LIFT Audit for an ongoing business, which includes a review of all the legal, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Call us today to schedule. Or, schedule online.

Think business is all work and no play? It’s that mindset that will hold you back from reaching your potential. Your happiness matters. The problem is, the pressure of running a business can make it seem that prioritizing self-care and your overall well-being is next to impossible, or even irresponsible. But, in fact, the opposite is true.

If you don’t prioritize self-care, your business will never succeed to the level you want. It’s a tricky balance that you will only be able to master if you see through the belief patterns that are holding you back.

Here’s something to look at that can have a big impact on your achievement of true success, going forward.

Quite often, traditional success is driven by fear of failure, a need to prove something, or a mind that tells you that when you [insert your favorite achievement oriented goal], then you will be able to be happy.

Unfortunately, what most often happens with success driven from this place, is you’ll hit the goal, but still not be happy.

Or you’ll be happy for a few minutes, and then it’s on to the next goal. Always chasing, never satisfied.

Typically, that’s happening because your relationship to discomfort is out of whack.

You are trying to solve for your discomfort with achievement, when really what your discomfort is asking for is self-care.

And, if you don’t listen to the request properly because you were never taught what self-care looks like, or because you don’t know how to listen to the part of you that’s uncomfortable, you will keep feeding the discomfort the wrong kind of nourishment.

In order to get into right relationship with your discomfort, you first need to notice that your mind is driving all of this.

It is using discomfort to speak to you.

But only because it’s the only way it knows to get your attention. Like a small child that keeps trying to get your attention, until it needs to use the most atrocious negative behaviors to do so, your mind will keep trying to tell you what it wants.

And, it’s way of doing so will get louder and louder, and uglier and uglier, until one day, it may make you very sick, just so you finally hear it.

Ideally, you can see it far before that point (like right now) and make the life changes it’s asking for, not by achieving more, but by caring for yourself more.

Entrepreneurs make tough decisions every day. They also have tough conversations. Whether it’s discussing an employee’s performance or a recent hiccup in operations, approach uncomfortable situations with a well-thought out plan, specific suggestions for improvement, and confidence.

Along those same lines, put preventative measures in place—like drafting better legal contracts—to mitigate uncomfortable situations.

Driven entrepreneurs often hire like-minded people who are passionate about work and motivated to do whatever it takes to succeed. They work hard and get results! But it’s just as important to set healthy boundaries, especially with a team of dedicated professionals. It’s vital that you model excellent self-care by taking good care of yourself and encouraging your team to do the same.  Work hard and don’t lose sight of the importance of your own mental health and well-being.

As a business owner, your bandwidth is not unlimited. Running a business is a mentally draining endeavor. When you suffer, your business suffers.

Put systems in place to ensure legal and financial issues are taken care of before they stress you out. This can include proper tax planning and auditing your insurance policies to ensure your business is well protected. Minimizing problems can free up your mental energy so you can actually enjoy the excitement and freedom of entrepreneurship.

If you are engaged to be married, divorce is probably the last thing you and your fiancé want to be thinking about. Yet you might be rightfully concerned about what would happen to your assets should your marriage end in divorce or in the event of your death. One option you might be considering for protecting your assets from these events is a prenuptial agreement.

However, even bringing up a prenup can be a romance killer that creates friction and distrust before the marriage even begins. And if it’s not properly created and executed, a divorce court can invalidate the asset protections offered by a prenup, so such agreements don’t exactly provide airtight protection.

Plus, a prenup would do nothing to keep your family out of court and out of conflict should you become incapacitated or when you die, which is something everyone who gets married needs to consider.

That said, prenups aren’t your only option. With proactive estate planning, for example, you can structure your assets in such a way that not only protects them from being lost to divorce, but also provides for both your future spouse and any children you may have from a previous marriage in the event of your death or incapacity.

Last week in part one, we discussed some of the benefits and drawbacks associated with using prenuptial agreements. Here, we’ll look at different estate planning vehicles that could provide similar—or even better—protection than prenups.

By setting up a revocable living trust and funding it with your separate assets before getting married, those assets would likely be considered non-marital property and not subject to division by the court upon divorce—as long as you never commingle any of those assets with your spouse after your marriage. To ensure your separate property assets stay separate, it’s vital that you create and fund the trust with your assets before the marriage and never add any assets acquired or created during the marriage.

If you commingle assets acquired during the marriage in a trust containing your separate non-marital assets, a court could declare all of those assets as marital property subject to claim as part of a divorce settlement. To this end, a revocable trust only protects your separate assets from divorce if they remain separate from marital property throughout the whole length of your marriage.

You can also use a revocable living trust to provide for your surviving spouse and children from a previous marriage in the event of your death or incapacity. Unlike a will, assets held by a trust are not subject to the court process, so those assets would be immediately available to your spouse and kids, sparing your family the time, expense, and potential conflict.

Note that since a revocable trust is “revocable” by definition, there is no asset protection for assets in your revocable trust, meaning that a revocable living trust will not protect your assets from creditors during your lifetime. If you want to achieve protection from both a future divorce and future creditors, you may want to consider one of the irrevocable trusts below.

You can protect your assets from divorce by having your parents (or another loved one) establish an irrevocable trust for you before your marriage. Then, the Investment Trustee of the irrevocable trust (who could be you) could purchase all of your existing assets in an arms-length transaction and manage those assets inside of the trust, where they are totally protected from a future divorce and any future creditors.

Note that this strategy does require special provisions to ensure you cannot make distributions to yourself from the trust without the approval of an “independent trustee.” This trustee could be a best friend or a professional trustee, but cannot be anyone related or subordinate to you.

Your parents or grandparents could also leave any future inheritance you are to receive to this irrevocable trust, ensuring that your inheritance would also be protected. If this irrevocable trust is properly established and the terms are well-counseled and well-drafted, all assets the trust owns—and any assets left to you in the future—will be fully protected from a future divorce, future creditors, and even from estate taxes upon your death. Yes, we like these trusts a lot.

It’s also possible for you to establish an irrevocable trust for yourself and gift your assets into the trust to keep them safe from divorce. However, this strategy is not as airtight as having a parent or grandparents establish the trust for you.

When you gift assets to an irrevocable trust, there’s a risk that a spouse or future creditor can claim fraudulent conveyance, if you gift those assets within a certain number of years (the exact time frame depends on the state) of the trust being set up. That said, if you are looking for asset protection and an alternative to a prenuptial agreement, and do not have a parent or grandparent available, a self-settled irrevocable trust can be a great second-best alternative.

If you are getting ready to tie the knot and would like to ensure that assets you bring into the marriage don’t end up being lost in a future divorce settlement or are protected for your kids from a prior marriage, meet with us for trusted counsel and guidance on all of your options well before your marriage. Once you are married, many planning options are off the table.

And regardless of your concerns about divorce, you definitely need to create or update your estate plan to protect and provide for your soon-to-spouse and any children you have in the event of your death or incapacity. Schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session™ today to get this planning started.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

This is the third in an ongoing series of NLBM articles discussing the true costs and consequences of failed estate planning. The series highlights a few of the most common—and costly—planning mistakes we encounter with clients. If the series exposes any potential gaps or weak spots in your plan, meet with a lawyer to learn how to properly address them.

When it comes to putting off or refusing to create an estate plan, your mind can concoct all sorts of rationalizations: “I won’t care because I’ll be dead,” “I’m too young,” “That won’t happen to me,” or “My family will know what to do.”

But these thoughts all come from a mix of egoic pride, denial, and above all, we imagine, a lack of real education about estate planning and the consequences to your family. Once you understand exactly what planning is designed to prevent and support, you’ll realize there really is no acceptable excuse for not having a plan, provided you are able to plan and truly care about your family’s experience after you die or if you become incapacitated.

Indeed, the first step in creating a proper plan is to thoroughly understand the potential consequences of going without one. In the event of your death or incapacity, not having a plan could be incredibly traumatic and costly for your family, who will be left to deal with the mess you’ve left behind.

While each estate and family are unique, here are some of the things most likely to happen to you and your loved ones if you fail to create any estate plan at all.

If you don’t have a plan, or only have a will (yes, even with a will), you’re forcing your family to go through upon your death. The legal process for settling your estate, and even if you have a will, it’s notoriously slow, costly, and public. But with no plan at all, can be a true nightmare for your loved ones.

Depending on the complexity of your estate, can take months or even years to complete. And like most court proceedings, can be expensive. In fact, once all of your debts, taxes, and court fees have been paid, there might be nothing left for anyone to inherit. And if there are any assets left, your family will likely have to pay hefty attorney’s fees and court costs in order to claim them.

Yet the most burdensome part of  the frustration and anxiety it can cause your loved ones. In addition to grieving your death, planning your funeral, and contacting everyone you’re close with, your family will be stuck dealing with a crowded court system that can be challenging to navigate even in the best of circumstances. Plus, the entire affair is open to the public, which can make things exponentially more arduous for those you leave behind, especially if the wrong people take an interest in your family’s affairs.

The expense and drama of the court system can be almost totally avoided with proper planning. Using a trust, for example, we can ensure that your assets pass directly to your family upon your death, without the need for any court intervention. Instead, so long as you have planned properly, just about everything can happen in the privacy of our office and on your family’s time.

If you die without a plan, the court will decide who inherits your assets, and this can lead to all sorts of problems. Who is entitled to your property is determined by our state’s intestate succession laws, which hinge largely upon on whether you are married and if you have children.

Spouses and children are given top priority, followed by your other closest living family members. If you’re single with no children, your assets typically go to your parents and siblings, and then more distant relatives if you have no living parents or siblings. If no living relatives can be located, your assets go to the state.

But you can change all of this with a plan and ensure your assets pass the way you want.

It’s important to note that state intestacy laws only apply to blood relatives, so unmarried partners and/or close friends would get nothing. If you want someone outside of your family to inherit your property, having a plan is an absolute must.

If you’re married with children and die with no plan, it might seem like things would go fairly smoothly, but that’s not always the case. If you’re married but have children from a previous relationship, for example, the court could give everything to your spouse and leave your children out. In another instance, you might be estranged from your kids or not trust them with money, but without a plan, state law controls who gets your assets, not you.

Moreover, dying without a plan could also cause your surviving family members to get into an ugly court battle over who has the most right to your property. Or if you become incapacitated, your loved ones could even get into conflict around your medical care. You may think this would never happen to your loved ones, but we see families torn apart by it all the time, even when there’s not significant financial wealth involved.

You can create a plan that handles your assets and your care in the exact manner you wish, taking into account all of your family dynamics, so your death or incapacity won’t be any more painful or expensive for your family than it needs to be.

Most people assume estate planning only comes into play when they die, but that’s dead wrong. Yes, pun intended.

Indeed, though planning for your eventual death is a big part of the process, it’s just as important—if not even more so—to plan for your potential incapacity due to accident or illness.

If you become incapacitated and have no plan in place, your family would have to petition the court to appoint a guardian or conservator to manage your affairs. This process can be extremely costly, time consuming, and traumatic for everyone involved. In fact, incapacity can be a much greater burden for your loved ones than your death. The first article in this series offers an in-depth look at the consequences of failing to plan for incapacity.

You can put planning vehicles in place that grant the person(s) of your choice the immediate authority to make your medical, financial, and legal decisions for you in the event of your incapacity. You can also implement planning strategies that provide specific guidelines detailing how you want your medical care to be managed, including critical end-of-life decisions.

If you’re the parent of minor children, the most devastating consequence of having no estate plan is what could happen to your kids in the event of your death or incapacity. Without a plan in place naming legal guardians for your kids, it will be left for a judge to decide who cares for your children. And this could cause major heartbreak not only for your children, but for your entire family.

You’d like to think that a judge would select the best person to care for your kids, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Indeed, the judge could pick someone from your family you’d never want to raise them to adulthood. And if you don’t have any family, or the family you do have is deemed unfit, your children could be raised by total strangers.

What’s more, if you have several relatives who want to care for your kids, they could end up fighting one another in court over who gets custody. This can get extremely ugly, as otherwise well-meaning family members fight one another for years, making their lawyers wealthy, while your kids are stuck in the middle.

If you have minor children, your number-one planning priority should be naming legal guardians to care for your children if anything should happen to you.

Naming legal guardians won’t keep your family out of court, as a judge is always required to finalize the legal naming of guardians in the event of death or incapacity of parents. But if it’s important to you who raises your kids if you can’t, you need to give the judge clear direction.

On top of that, you need to take action to keep your kids out of the care of strangers over the immediate term, while the authorities figure out what to do if something happens to you.

Given the potentially dire consequences for both you and your family, you can’t afford to put off creating your estate plan any longer. We’ll guide you step-by-step through the planning process to ensure you’ve taken all the proper precautions to spare your loved ones from needless frustration, conflict, and expense.

But the biggest benefit you stand to gain from putting a plan in place is the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your loved ones will be provided and cared for no matter what happens to you.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

With more and more Baby Boomers reaching retirement age each year, our country is undergoing an unprecedented demographic transformation that’s sure to challenge our society in many ways. There’s been lots of talk about whether Baby Boomers will have enough savings for retirement and the strains the generation will put on Social Security and Medicare.

But there’s another issue that’s getting far less attention—the coinciding increase in the prevalence of dementia.

Along with swelling senior population, the nation is expected to see a corresponding rise in those suffering from age-related dementia—cases of Alzheimer’s alone are expected to double by 2050. While the cognitive decline from dementia affects nearly every mental function, many people aren’t aware that one of the first abilities to go is one’s “financial capacity.”

Financial capacity refers to the ability to manage money and make wise financial decisions. A decline in financial capacity not only makes seniors more likely to mismanage their money, but it also makes them easy targets for financial exploitation, fraud, and abuse.

Taking steps to reduce the risks of diminished financial capacity is vital, but stepping in to help manage an aging parent’s money without threatening their sense of independence and privacy can be a real challenge. Even if they’re aware of their own impairment, many are reluctant to ask for help, and some may even deny there’s a problem.

Ideally, you should address the potential for dementia and other forms of incapacity with your senior family members well before any signs of cognitive decline appear. Waiting until they start showing signs of dementia will only exacerbate the complications and could even invalidate planning efforts.

Start by having a heart-to-heart conversation with your loved ones about the risks involved with incapacity, and how estate planning can help protect them. Approach the subject with care and compassion. Reassure them that your goal is to make certain they retain as much control over their lives as possible—and talking about the issue early on is the best way to do that.

For example, you should let your aging parents know that if they become incapacitated without proper planning, you’ll have to go to court and petition to become their legal guardian. This process is not only quite costly and emotionally taxing, but there’s a possibility that the court could appoint a professional guardian, rather than a loved one such as yourself.

A court-appointed guardianship would mean that a total stranger would control all of their affairs—financial and otherwise—which is something they likely wouldn’t want. Professional guardianships also open the door for potential exploitation and abuse by unscrupulous guardians, which is something that’s on the rise given the sharp uptick in the senior population.

However, unless you have the legal authority to make your parents’ financial decisions, your ability to manage their money will be seriously limited. You might be able to work together with them for a while without such authority, but at some point, their cognitive impairment will likely reach a stage where you’ll need to assume full control—and that’s where estate planning comes in.

The best option would be for your aging loved ones to put in place a comprehensive plan for incapacity as soon as possible. This way, they can choose exactly who they want making their financial, medical, and legal decisions for them if and when they’re no longer able to do on their own.

There are a number of planning tools that can be used in an incapacity plan, but a will alone is sufficient. A will only goes into effect upon death, so it would do nothing should your elderly parents become incapacitated by dementia.

While a will is important in planning for death, your parents should also put in place planning tools specially designed for incapacity. One such tool is durable financial power of attorney. This document would give you (or another person of their choosing) the immediate authority to make decisions related to the management of their financial and legal affairs in the event of their incapacity.

The downside of financial durable power of attorney is that it sometimes is not accepted by banks and other financial institutions, and you might still end up needing to go to court to get control of your parents’ affairs.

A revocable living trust is a MUCH better estate planning tool to transfer control of your parents’ financial assets to you without court intervention should they become incapacitated. A revocable living trust, created while your parents have capacity, can plan for the transition of their assets to your care and control in a way that feels safe and secure to them. Bring your parents to meet with us for a Family Wealth Planning Session to learn more about how this would work.

Yet having the legal authority to make your parents’ financial and legal decisions is just part of an overall incapacity plan. They’ll also need to put in place planning strategies designed to address their healthcare decisions and medical treatment like medical power of attorney and a living will.

We can help your aging parents and other senior family members develop a comprehensive incapacity plan, customized with the specific planning vehicles to match their unique needs and life situation.

While incapacity from dementia is most common in the elderly, debilitating injury and illness can strike at any point in life. For this reason, all adults age 18 and older should have an incapacity plan. Moreover, such planning must be addressed well before cognitive decline begins, as you must be able to clearly express your wishes and consent for the documents to be valid.

Given this urgency, you should discuss incapacity planning with your aging parents right away, and schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session with us to get a plan started. If your senior family members already have an incapacity plan, we can review it to make sure it’s been properly set up, maintained, and updated.

Of course, if you notice any signs of diminished financial capacity or other suspect behaviors, you should immediately contact us to address the issue. While there’s no way to prevent age-related dementia and other forms of cognitive decline, make sure your parents and other senior relatives know that they can use estate planning to have control over how their lives and assets will be managed if it does occur.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.