When it comes to estate planning, knowing goals is the first step to getting great legal advice from lawyers. Clients who go into estate planning knowing specific goals are more likely to efficiently land on the right estate planning tools to achieve what they want. Attorneys can help clients analyze their priorities, but it’s much more efficient (and affordable) if a client goes into estate planning knowing what they truly want.
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Legal-Ease: Insurance’s hidden value
Minimizing risk is typically a goal of the type of law that Lee practices. Sometimes insurance policies can’t provide what legal tools can provide, and other times legal tools can’t provide the value that insurance can bring to people, businesses and farmers.
While sometimes successful people just seem to be lucky, often it’s a matter of smart planning and research that leads to success. Lee helps his clients analyze their liability insurance and to decide what additional legal tools are necessary and whether the client is appropriately insured or over-insured.
Legal-Ease: School bus traffic laws
It’s almost time for students to head back to school, which means it’s time for drivers to encounter school buses on the road. Drivers must stop at least 10 feet from the part of the school bus that’s closest to the driver. So if a school bus is stopped on a one-, two- or three-lane road, all traffic going in both directions must stop at least 10 feet from the bus. The bus driver should not move the bus until the students are no longer in the roadway. Other drivers can move again once the school bus begins moving again.
Legal-Ease: How much tax will I owe when I sell my property?
The tax paid on the sale of investment property is called capital gains tax. Capital gains tax is calculated against the amount earned by property that increased in value by its nature and not by the virtue of the owner’s income, rental income or interest earnings. Capital gains tax rates are typically lower than income tax rates. Capital gains tax will usually become a consideration when someone sells stocks, bonds or real estate. Calculating capital gains tax liability can range from very simple to much more complex for some real estate.
Legal-Ease: Guilt by association and felony murder
In the legal world, the question of whether everyone involved in a crime is as guilty as the “trigger man” involves a careful analysis. In the state of Ohio, guilt by association is addressed by a legal concept referred to as “felony murder.”
To be guilty of murder in the state of Ohio, a person must have acted intentionally. Murder requires that someone was killed on purpose, which is different from the requirements for other homicides.
Legal-Ease: Hot weather and electricity
During the hot summer months, electric companies request that we cut down on the usage of electricity in our homes and businesses. This request may seem odd, but utility companies such as electric, water and sewage companies are heavily regulated. The laws and regulations on utility companies help ensure that electric service and other utility service is always available without the concern for rolling blackouts and brownouts.
Legal-Ease: Real estate taxes more complex than commonly thought
Real estate taxes in Ohio operate under a unique structure. Real estate taxes are defined in terms of “mills,” which are created through local governments or through residents’ votes for “levies.” Mills and millage are understood to be a percentage of the property value. The calculation process is much more complex, though, because real estate tax levies can fall under two different categories.
In the first category of real estate levies, millage is calculated as a percentage of the property value. In the second category of real estate tax levies, the levies are defined as mills, but they’re capped at the total dollar amount of money that the levy brings in during its first year.
Legal-Ease: Four questions on easements
The law requires that each and every parcel of land has access to a public roadway. For owners of a landlocked parcel, this may require a purchase of an easement from an adjoining landowner. Easements allow for the use of property without owning that property.
Typically, easement concerns break down into four different questions.
Legal-Ease: Signing the Declaration of Independence then and signing receipts now
We sign various documents all the time, and what our signature means changes depending upon what’s being signed. Sometimes signing a document confirms certain facts, other times a signature is a commitment, and sometimes signatures mean absolutely nothing.
For example, signing for the delivery of an item that’s already paid for just confirms the receipt of an item. But signing a credit card slip represents a promise to pay for goods.
Legal-Ease: Who’s your daddy?
When asking clients about their children for estate planning purposes, men often joke that “these are the children…that I know of.” While that’s almost always intended to be funny, sometimes it is actually true.
In the state of Ohio, a man’s biological children may have rights to inherit from the deceased man. But biological children are not always the same as a man’s legal heirs. In Ohio, if a man dies without a will but with children, biological offspring will only inherit through Ohio’s “no will inheritance structure” if the man had demonstrated awareness of the child’s or children’s existence before his death.