Estate Law
Andrea M. Gherini | Law Office of Andrea M. Gherini
Q. What implications do our increasingly digital lives have on estate planning?
A. More and more of our important financial documents are stored online. Additionally, we seldom print family pictures but rather store these memories on our hard drive or on sites such as Snapfish or Flicker. Hundreds of millions of people share their life stories with friends in status updates on Facebook instead of writing letters. Some of this information has financial value to the owner, such as domain names. Other information has sentimental value such as family photos. Information stored digitally, whether it is information on email accounts, social media accounts, online banks and financial accounts, websites, domain names, Twitter accounts, PayPal accounts, cloud based storage, blogs, or documents stored on a computer, is encompassed in the term "Digital Assets." What happens to your Digital Assets when you can no longer access the sites because of dementia or death?
The American Bar Association Journal recently reported the story of Eva and Sidney Kripke of Chicago. Sidney suffered from dementia and Eva had been taking care of her husband's financial affairs for several years, utilizing online banking. Suddenly, Bank of America changed their security procedures and Eva was locked out because she did not have the security code that appeared on the back of Sydney's credit card. Eva had destroyed the credit card because of her husband's dementia. Bank of America refused to restore Eva's online banking privileges despite the fact that she had her husband's account number, his social security number and his Durable Power of Attorney giving her authority to manage his banking. Bank of America refused to honor the Durable Power of Attorney because it did not specifically address online bank accounts.
You may be surprised to learn that Facebook will not allow a relative to download your account unless mandated by law (and to date California has no such law). Yahoo! takes a more obstructive stand and will not permit a relative to set up a memorial page unless the deceased account holder has previously consented. In order to avoid the some of the problems described above, you must be proactive.
• Make an inventory of your Digital Assets and passwords;
• Provide authority in your Power of Attorney, Trust, and Will to manage these Digital Assets;
• Provide a procedure for this person to gain account access; and
• Provide instructions as to what you want done with your Digital Assets.
Your estate-planning attorney can assist you with protecting your Digital Assets as part of creating your Estate Plan.
Gherini can be reached at [email protected]
Property Law
Stanley D. Prowse | Law Offices of Stanley D. Prowse
Q. I'm thinking about becoming a landlord. What laws should I be aware of?
A. If you are an amateur landlord, you need to know about the nightmares our always helpful California legislature has created for you. Here are some high (or maybe low) points.
Once you've rented the place, you can't go in again without the tenant's OK, unless it's an emergency. There are minor exceptions. If something needs fixing, you can enter without the tenant's permission, but only after giving the tenant advance notice, and giving the notice correctly is a challenge.
If you want to show the place to a prospective tenant, you can also enter, but again only after advance notice. In short, if the tenant won't let you in, you can't go in just to check the place out, notice or no notice. And if you can't do that, how are you supposed to find out if there's an emergency or something needs fixing?
Good luck with a bad tenant who's wrecking your investment. Handling security deposits has become a similar bad dream. If the tenant asks for a preliminary walk through before moving out, you have to do one, but if you ask for one, the tenant can cheerfully refuse. Of course, a tenant who's trashed the place won't ask for one, so you'll only discover the damage after he's gone. In any event, you'll want to deduct the cost of repairs from the security deposit. Your deductions had better be reasonable, and you'd better keep careful track of what you did and what you spent, because within three weeks after the tenant leaves, you must give him an itemized statement with detailed backup documentation for everything.
If the tenant accuses you of "bad faith" deductions in court, and you don't convince the judge otherwise, you could wind up paying the tenant double the amount you should have refunded but didn't. If this abridged summary sounds threatening, just wait until you hear the details. If you see the law of unintended consequences at work here, you're probably right.
Prowse can be reached at [email protected]
Andrea M. Gherini | Law Office of Andrea M. Gherini
Q. What implications do our increasingly digital lives have on estate planning?
A. More and more of our important financial documents are stored online. Additionally, we seldom print family pictures but rather store these memories on our hard drive or on sites such as Snapfish or Flicker. Hundreds of millions of people share their life stories with friends in status updates on Facebook instead of writing letters. Some of this information has financial value to the owner, such as domain names. Other information has sentimental value such as family photos. Information stored digitally, whether it is information on email accounts, social media accounts, online banks and financial accounts, websites, domain names, Twitter accounts, PayPal accounts, cloud based storage, blogs, or documents stored on a computer, is encompassed in the term "Digital Assets." What happens to your Digital Assets when you can no longer access the sites because of dementia or death?
The American Bar Association Journal recently reported the story of Eva and Sidney Kripke of Chicago. Sidney suffered from dementia and Eva had been taking care of her husband's financial affairs for several years, utilizing online banking. Suddenly, Bank of America changed their security procedures and Eva was locked out because she did not have the security code that appeared on the back of Sydney's credit card. Eva had destroyed the credit card because of her husband's dementia. Bank of America refused to restore Eva's online banking privileges despite the fact that she had her husband's account number, his social security number and his Durable Power of Attorney giving her authority to manage his banking. Bank of America refused to honor the Durable Power of Attorney because it did not specifically address online bank accounts.
You may be surprised to learn that Facebook will not allow a relative to download your account unless mandated by law (and to date California has no such law). Yahoo! takes a more obstructive stand and will not permit a relative to set up a memorial page unless the deceased account holder has previously consented. In order to avoid the some of the problems described above, you must be proactive.
• Make an inventory of your Digital Assets and passwords;
• Provide authority in your Power of Attorney, Trust, and Will to manage these Digital Assets;
• Provide a procedure for this person to gain account access; and
• Provide instructions as to what you want done with your Digital Assets.
Your estate-planning attorney can assist you with protecting your Digital Assets as part of creating your Estate Plan.
Gherini can be reached at [email protected]
Property Law
Stanley D. Prowse | Law Offices of Stanley D. Prowse
Q. I'm thinking about becoming a landlord. What laws should I be aware of?
A. If you are an amateur landlord, you need to know about the nightmares our always helpful California legislature has created for you. Here are some high (or maybe low) points.
Once you've rented the place, you can't go in again without the tenant's OK, unless it's an emergency. There are minor exceptions. If something needs fixing, you can enter without the tenant's permission, but only after giving the tenant advance notice, and giving the notice correctly is a challenge.
If you want to show the place to a prospective tenant, you can also enter, but again only after advance notice. In short, if the tenant won't let you in, you can't go in just to check the place out, notice or no notice. And if you can't do that, how are you supposed to find out if there's an emergency or something needs fixing?
Good luck with a bad tenant who's wrecking your investment. Handling security deposits has become a similar bad dream. If the tenant asks for a preliminary walk through before moving out, you have to do one, but if you ask for one, the tenant can cheerfully refuse. Of course, a tenant who's trashed the place won't ask for one, so you'll only discover the damage after he's gone. In any event, you'll want to deduct the cost of repairs from the security deposit. Your deductions had better be reasonable, and you'd better keep careful track of what you did and what you spent, because within three weeks after the tenant leaves, you must give him an itemized statement with detailed backup documentation for everything.
If the tenant accuses you of "bad faith" deductions in court, and you don't convince the judge otherwise, you could wind up paying the tenant double the amount you should have refunded but didn't. If this abridged summary sounds threatening, just wait until you hear the details. If you see the law of unintended consequences at work here, you're probably right.
Prowse can be reached at [email protected]