By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney As an estate planning attorney, I often review the wills, trusts, and other estate planning documents that are used by celebrities and well-known personalities. I find the doing this helps me illustrate to my clients some of the easy mistakes they can avoid when it comes to creating their own estate plan. This brings us to Larry King, and the estate and mess that he left after his death. Though we don’t know the precise value it is anticipated that Larry King’s estate is worth about $2 million. Given his success as an interviewer of celebriti ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney As an estate planning attorney, I often get questions about wills and how they work in handling a person’s estate. One of the questions I frequently get is whether a person can create their own last will and testament and whether if they do this it will be valid. To be clear, Idaho does accept holographic wills. A holographic will is a written will that is created by the individual who is signing it. To be holographic, the signature and material provisions of the will must be in the handwriting of the person signing it. The post HANDWRITTEN W ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney Over the past 22 years while practicing as an estate planning and probate attorney I’ve seen and heard just about everything you can imagine when it comes to estate plans, probates, family interactions, family fights, and distributions from an estate. One of the rare things that comes up every once in a while, is that a person who was appointed through a last will and testament to be a personal representative doesn’t want to do it. A personal representative is the individual who is named in a written will who will be in charge of the estate w ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney As an estate planning attorney for more than 20 years I’ve helped numerous clients create their own customized estate plans. These usually include a last will and testament, a durable power of attorney, a living will, and a power of attorney for health care. These estate plans could also include one or more trusts depending on the needs of the client. Most people I work with know they need an estate plan but many of them don’t know how to begin the process. We do our best to make this as simple and easy as possible. We start by providing our ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney My goal as an estate planning attorney is to do exactly what it is my clients want to do so long as it is legally and morally right. Sometimes this means disinheriting a child from their estate for various reasons. Alternatively, it may also mean that my client would rather give their estate to a charity than to their family. Or it could be favoring one child more than another when it comes to dispersing and distributing assets from my clients’ estate. So long as my clients can provide me with an articulable reason for their intention, I am h ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney As an estate planning attorney, I often tell my clients that if they ever go through any major life changes, they should review their estate plan and make sure that it still meets their needs. One of the major life changes that often happens these days is that a person moves.  If you have moved from another state to Idaho, then this article is for you. In many instances moving to Idaho does not require any changes to your estate plan. In fact, Idaho has a specific law that says that if your estate planning documents were valid in the sta ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney Most people don’t have any kind of an estate plan for themselves because they don’t know how to begin one. We do our best to make the process easy. To help our clients get started, we provide a free Estate Planning Questionnaire that we can either email to you or you can download from our web site. This is a PDF document that you can type directly into and save to your computer. Once the Questionnaire is filled out, you can email it back to us. Then we schedule a free 30-minute consultation to review your information and discuss the things th ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney With the New Year upon us, it is time to take care of the basic things that need to be done to make sure that your estate-planning meets all of your personal and family needs. In other words, if you have gone to the trouble to create an estate plan then now is the time to review it and make sure that it accomplishes everything that you want. If you have not yet set up an estate plan, a new year is a perfect opportunity to get it done. Most people who don’t have a written estate plan haven’t gotten it done because they don’t know how to start ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney As an estate planning attorney, I always recommend that individuals get their written estate planning documents completed. Doing this would include the most important documents such as a durable power of attorney, a living will, a power of attorney for health care, and a last will and testament. All of these documents are notarized so there is no question that they were properly signed and dated by the individual. In addition to this, the last will and testament is also witnessed so that it is self-proving. A self-proving will is one that is ..read more

By Lane V. Erickson, Pocatello Estate Planning Attorney As an estate planning attorney practicing in Pocatello Idaho, I have come to learn that having a written estate plan is the very best thing that you can do both for yourself and for your family and loved ones. When you don’t have a written plan there are so many things that are left up to chance, and that open the door for misunderstandings, disagreements, and outright family fights. My goal as a lawyer helping others with estate planning is to first of all accomplish exactly what they want, and secondly to do everything possible to keep ..read more