NC and SC Estate Planning and Elder Law Firm

Death is a difficult topic to talk about, which means that many aspects of it are shrouded in mystery. This, some crazy movie plots, a boatload of conspiracies floating around the internet, has led to a lot of myths and misconceptions about estate planning. This post will bust three of the most common myths.

Ryan Monk, already well-known as a talented estate planning attorney with bases in Charlotte and Fort Mill, North Carolina, has recently added two prestigious new credentials to his resume. He has been recognized in 2017 as both a Super Lawyer and as one of  Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite. A member of the North Carolina South Carolina State Bar Associations, Ryan Monk concentrates his efforts on legacy protection and wealth preservation, and is adept in handling issues of elder law, veterans benefits, and business law with competence and integrity.

Super Lawyers is a service that rates outstanding lawyers from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
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It’s that time of year again! Time to make New Year’s resolutions! This year, instead of vowing to shed a few pounds, which you know is a promise that will fall by the wayside within a couple weeks, why not resolve to put an estate plan in place?

It’s the perfect resolution because your attorney actually does a lot of the work for you, and you will feel really relieved to have it done and over with. And as an added bonus, it’s calorie free in case you also make the same old “get in shape” resolution everyone else makes too!

Why It’s Important Not To Wait To Make An Estate Plan

A lot of people think that estate planning is something that can be put off until old age. That’s simply not true.

If you’ve spent any time at all on the internet over the past few years you will recognize this blog title as a little bit of click-bait. We aren’t going to take you to some shady corner of the internet and attempt to sell you homeopathic medicine though. We really are going to share one simple estate planning trick for avoiding taxes.

Working with veterans and their families to help them get all the benefits they are eligible for teaches you a lot about the challenges our brave men and women in uniform face here on the home front. Unless you are a veteran, or the family member of a veteran, or have really gotten to know a few veterans, the struggle is difficult to grasp. A new documentary about a veteran living in North Carolina is helping to shed some light on the subject and bring awareness to it.

From the way people reacted in response to the news that veterans in California were being asked to repay benefits that they had received in error, you might get the impression that our military is a highly efficient bureaucracy that rarely makes mistakes. Unfortunately, those of us that have experience navigating the military benefits system know that is far from true. Our military is excellent at many things, but accurate bookkeeping is not one of its strengths.

Why is everyone talking about military bonuses out in California?

It seems that there were a couple of things that went wrong out in California. First, veterans were given reenlistment bonuses that they were not actually eligible for.

Several years ago, an estate planning attorney I had met at a conference called looking for some advice. One of his clients had recently passed away very unexpectedly, and he was scrambling to help his client’s widow take control of her late husband’s business. Things weren’t going well.

The widow was, understandably, overcome with grief, but she was doing the best she could. Unfortunately, she didn’t even know which keys opened the front door, let alone how to run the business on a day to day basis.

With all that has been going on in the world over the past month, it was easy to miss the fact that an interesting new lawsuit has been filed against the state of South Carolina. The fact that the state is getting sued is not news. That happens all the time. What is different about this case is that it is about whether or not an innovative new company is able to do business in South Carolina.

Opternative is a Chicago-based company that allows consumers to get a prescription for glasses or contacts over the internet.

An All Too Real Horror Story

Spoiler Alert: The following includes information about this season of the popular TV show American Horror Story: Roanoke.

One of the central plots in Season 6 is recapping the actions of a pair of nurses (now ghosts) who opened an assisted living facility in North Carolina (Roanoke like the lost colony, not like the current city in case you were wondering) so they could kill people whose initials spell out their favorite word, M-U-R-D-E-R.

What many people don’t realize, is that this scary story is based on a real life horror story. Catherine May Wood and Gwendolyn Gail Graham, the “Lethal Lovers,” were convicted of second and first degree murder respectively after several people under their care at a nursing home in Michigan died suspiciously. According to a New York Times article recounting the ladies’ 1988 arrests, says it was rumored that the killers were attempting to spell out the word “MURDER,” just like the ghosts in American Horror Story.
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If you care for someone with special needs, you know your loved one is someone special. It should come as no surprise that a loved one who needs special attention and care from you during your lifetime also requires a different treatment than others included in your estate plan.

Leaving money to someone who has a disability is a wonderful thing to do, but if not done properly, it can end up making them worse off.
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There’s no doubt about it, we live in a digital world. Perhaps there is no better example of this than what happened during Hurricane Matthew. It was almost humorous to see young people try and figure out how to live unplugged for a while, but there were plenty of serious moments as well. Facebook activated its “safety check” feature which allowed people in the storm’s path to digitally signal they were doing alright, and a guy from Hope Mills, North Carolina was rescued because his brother down in Texas happened to see a picture of his flooded house, which was taken by a drone, on Twitter.

Although the digital world has become an important aspect of our live, it is not something many people think about when they craft their Read more . . .