Because of all the estate planning that we do, we get a lot of estate planning questions on a daily basis. In today’s column we are going to discuss the top five estate planning questions that we regularly get in …
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Keeping the Family Cottage in the Family
You own the family cottage, farm or waterfront property that you and your loved ones have enjoyed for years. You want your loved ones to continue to enjoy the property after you are gone. Is there something that you can …
Preventing Uncapping Property Taxes
Property tax assessments seem to be going up and up. Local tax assessors are on the lookout for opportunities to “uncap” property assessments, which increase the property taxes on your real estate. Since Michigan adopted Proposal A in 1994, the …
Joint Ownership of Real Estate Hazardous
This week is our last column in the series on real estate and deeds. We have covered a lot of ground in the last six weeks (pun intended). We first discussed the different types of deeds and ownership interests. We …
Record that Deed!
Today we continue our discussion about deeds and real estate. I had a new client in the office this past week who had no estate planning documents in place, no will or trust and no financial or health care powers …
What Must Be Included In a Deed?
Last week, we discussed when there is more than one owner on a deed and what can happen if you do not use the correct specific words to legally describe the owners’ interests. In prior weeks, we talked about the …
More Than One Deed Owner – Who Owns What?
Two weeks ago, we began our discussion about deeds. First we talked about the different types of deeds and then deed ownership interests. We have also been discussing how a small change in the words used on a deed can …
Types of Deed Ownership Interests
We started our discussion about deeds last week and talked about the most common types of deeds used in Michigan. As we discussed, deeds are often one page documents and little changes in a few words can make a huge …
Different Types of Deeds and What They Do
It has been almost four years since I have discussed deeds in any detail in this column. If you own your own home you have probably seen a deed. It’s only one page long. It’s pretty simple – NOT! It …
Who’s Responsible for the Trees?
Your neighbor has that old maple tree right near the property line. The tree canopy is huge. It extends way over the property line, over your yard or even your house. You have been nice enough so far, but you …