Tucker discusses importance of estate planning at Rotary Club of Aiken meeting

Feb. 4--Attorney Bill Tucker issued a friendly, but firm, reminder to members of the Rotary Club of Aiken during their meeting Monday at Newberry Hall.

"For those of you who have neglected or put off doing your estate planning, you need to do it because none of us is getting out of here alive," he said. "If you Google how many people in the United States die without a will every year, it's more than 50%, which is staggering."

In those cases, state law determines how the estates will be distributed to heirs and/or beneficiaries.

"In South Carolina, there is a specific statute that talks about the degrees of kinship and what they're entitled to and what percentage they are entitled to," Tucker said. "And I would submit to you that probably if put to the task, you would agree that it isn't how you would want your estate to be (distributed)."

Tucker believes that everybody should at least have a will. But living trusts "are gaining in acceptance," he said, "and there are advantages to them. It (a living trust) is a non-probate method of transferring wealth. You can administer it in your lifetime (as the trustee) ... but when you get disabled or at your death, there will be a successor trustee. The trust can either continue or it can terminate at the time of your death and be distributed. There is less opportunity for it to be contested as a non-probate method, and it's more private (than a will)."

Tucker also talked about a mistake some people make that involves how their bank accounts are set up and the unintended consequences it will have if they die and have more than one child.

"I see this all the time, where a mother or a father has decided they want to make things easy and simple, so they put one child on their checking account (and/or savings account)," he said. "I had one (parent) the other day that had $100,000 in checking, and they had one child out of multiple children co-owning that account. And the bankers in this room will tell you that legally, if mama dies, that money is the surviving joint tenant's, so it goes to the one child. But if you ask the mama, she would say, 'Oh no, I want to treat everybody equally,' but her actions have not done that. She has shifted things and weighted things in favor of one child.

"Now, some children will be noble and true," he continued. "They will say, 'Not withstanding the fact that I'm the joint owner, I'm going to share it with my siblings. But legally, they have no reason to do that. So if they don't want to be noble and true, they can keep the money, and there is not a thing that the court can do about it. And believe me, that causes some interesting conversations in families and it causes some very interesting conversations with the other children, who are none too happy about that."

Tucker is with the Hull Barrett law firm. He is a senior partner in the Aiken office.

In addition to Aiken, Hull Barrett has offices in Georgia in Augusta and Evans.

Dede Biles is the Aiken County government, business and horse industry reporter for the Aiken Standard. Follow her on Twitter @DBethBiles.

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