Carlsbad CA Estate Planning

Prince's Estate Might Be Forced to Release His Music

Prince passed away with a lot of unreleased songs still in his vault. It would most likely be best for his estate to release that music slowly over time so the market is not flooded and steady interest in Prince's music can be maintained. However, according to the trustee overseeing the estate that might not be possible.

Because the musician did not have an estate plan it is anticipated that the combined federal and state estate tax bills will be half of the estate, which is approximately $125 million as People reports in "Taxes Could Wipe Out Half of Prince's $250 Million Estate and Force Early Sale of His Unreleased Songs, Trustee Says."

The trustee believes the estate will need to come up with the cash by Jan. 21, 2017 or be assessed fees and penalties. It is also possible that if the estate cannot meet the estate tax bill, then government entities could force a sale of estate assets.

To manage these problems the trustee is asking the court to allow him to negotiate contracts on behalf of the estate quicker than normal. The trustee is also asking the court to not allow the various paternity suits filed against the estate to interfere with or delay the process of raising the cash to pay the estate tax.

One likely result of this problem for the estate is that many of Prince's unreleased songs will be released to raise money. It is also possible the Prince's home, Paisley Park, could be sold.

Reference: People (June 8, 2016) "Taxes Could Wipe Out Half of Prince's $250 Million Estate and Force Early Sale of His Unreleased Songs, Trustee Says."

Digital Estate Planning Document Storage

Even the best estate plans are completely worthless if no one knows the estate planning documents exist or they cannot otherwise be found. A will cannot be submitted to court, for example, if no one produces the will.

Several companies are attempting to fix this problem by storing documents digitally in the cloud. These services do help protect documents from being destroyed in a natural disaster or misplaced by other means. However, they do not fully solve the problem.

Someone still must know the documents are stored digitally and how to retrieve them.

ABC 15 reports on a new service that seeks to solve these problems in "Phoenix man launches website to store estate planning documents."

Document Trunk takes a proactive step to learn when its clients pass away. It uses an algorithm to scan the Internet on a daily basis for any information that suggests one of its clients has died, such as a local obituary listing. If the algorithm comes up with a hit, then company staff confirms the death.

When a client's death is verified, the company releases estate planning documents to the appropriate people.

While digital services like Document Trunk can provide a helpful solution to estate planning document storage, the best strategy is still to let family members or friends know that you have an estate plan and where they can find your legal documents if anything happens to you.

It goes without saying, you should tell your family the name of the attorney who drew up your estate plan so that attorney can be contacted when you pass away.

Reference: ABC 15 (May 24, 2016) "Phoenix man launches website to store estate planning documents."