A living will is a written statement that controls health care decisions that can be made on your behalf.  That’s pretty important.
To learn more about what a living will is (and what it is not), how a living will works, and what alternatives exist for executing a living will, you will want to read my February newsletter.  It’s available now in the publications section of deconcinimcdonald.com.  

A tangible personal property list is a list you can make to go with your will, if it’s provided for in the will, to specify who is to receive items of your tangible personal property.  Read all about it in my Estate Planning Law Report for December, now posted in the publications section at my firm’s web site, deconcinimcdonald.com.
Tangible personal property does not include currency.  It also doesn’t include real estate, since that is real property, not personal property.
That reminds me of my favorite bit of dialogue in A Charlie Brown Christmas (which I watch every year, and watched again on Friday):
Lucy: “I never get what I really want [for Christmas].”
Charlie Brown: “What is it that you really want?”
Lucy: “Real estate.”

My September newsletter was mailed last week and is now posted at deconcinimcdonald.com.  It’s about a question that comes up regularly: will a trust shield your assets from future liabilities?  
In the newsletter I also discuss the perennial topic of what assets are exempt from the claims of your creditors under Arizona law.  I said under Arizona law because the rules are different in other states.  
On a related topic, here is a link to a newsletter I wrote a while back about Arizona law on how one particular type of property, your homestead, may be exempt from claims of creditors.  I have heard that there’s no limit to the homestead exemption in some states, but that’s not the case in Arizona.
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My September newsletter is in the works.  I’m going to address an estate planning topic that comes up regularly: will a trust shield your assets from future liabilities?  
I’m also going to briefly discuss what assets are, under Arizona law, exempt from the claims of your creditors.  Note that I said under Arizona law, because the rules are different in other states.  
In the meantime, here is a link to a newsletter I wrote a while back about Arizona law on how one particular type of property, your homestead, may be exempt from claims of creditors.  I have heard that there’s no limit to the homestead exemption in some states, but that’s not the case in Arizona.  

One of the most commonly used vehicles for non-testamentary estate planning (that’s a term I just made up) is the revocable (“living”) trust.  Non-testamentary estate planning refers to any estate planning method that doesn’t rely on a will.  Perhaps a better term (one that I didn’t make up) is non-probate estate planning.  That includes any method of transferring assets owned by a deceased individual outside of an estate administration (that’s what’s commonly referred to as “probate”).
The revocable trust is widely used as a vehicle for non-probate estate planning, but it doesn’t actually allow you to avoid probate unless it’s “funded.”  What is “funding” a trust?  And what are some other ways to leave things to people without using a will, or in other words, what are some other methods of non-testamentary estate planning?  Find out by reading my Estate Planning Law Report for August, 2018, now available for your enjoyment, and hopefully edification, in the publications section of deconcinimcdonald.com.  It’s also linked on the home page.  

A superficial treatment is better than none at all, but an article I read on Fox Business really didn’t tell me much of any substance, even though it was loaded with quotes from authoritative-sounding lawyers.
Oh, the subject was valuation discounts for family limited partnership interests.  Apparently, the IRS has proposed new regulations that would narrow the circumstances in which the IRS will allow those discounts to be applied.  
Those valuation discounts are, as the Fox Business article indicates, a method to reduce the value of, and hence the estate tax on the transfer of, family limited partnership interests when an owner dies.  It’s not a new idea.  

Having advised clients on handling their loved ones' estates for almost thirty years, I have seen  numerous situations in which someone's attempt to direct the disposition of their estate, i.e. to create a valid will, was ineffective.  Don't let this happen to you.  Read about the Arizona rules for how to make a will in the May edition of my Estate Planning Law Report.

A DNR is a do-not-resuscitate instruction, the formal name of which in Arizona law is a prehospital medical care directive.  Read all about it in my March, 2018, Estate Planning Law Report, posted in the publications section at deconcinimcdonald.com.  
If you decide you should have one, I can help.

I have talked to several people recently with questions about whether or not a particular writing (document) qualifies as a will.  The questions usually come up, unfortunately, in this context: my family member died, this is the what they wrote down about what happens to their property, is it enforceable?
I’ll have new report on this subject soon, since it comes up frequently.  In the meantime, you can read what I wrote about it in 2016, in my newsletter archive.

When I last wrote about it nearly a year and a half ago, 19 states, including Arizona, had enacted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA for you acronym mavens).  I pointed out at the time that California had not adopted the RUFADAA, and that unless California adopts the RUFADAA or something like it, its adoption in other states may not do much good.  That’s because California is where many of the companies holding your digital assets (e.g. Google and Facebook) are located.
Another whole aspect of handling digital assets involves platforms like Github, that are designed for individuals and companies to develop and store code.  Those are digital assets that have real value.  
As of this writing, 37 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have adopted the RUFADAA, but California still hasn’t adopted it.  Perhaps California has similar legislation, but if not, I don’t know how Google and Facebook, not to mention Github, are going to react to fiduciaries’ attempts to retrieve digital assets in their control.
The fact that the RUFADAA has been adopted in Arizona but not in California is another reason to use (Arizona based) GoDaddy for email, domain registration, and web hosting.