by Julie Hall | Oct 23, 2014 | Dealing with Stuff, Plan Ahead, Simplify stuff now, The Estate Lady Blog
Are you leaving a gift or guilt for your loved ones? A bounty or a burden? It’s time to think about it. Seriously. Living or deceased, in about 90% of the cases I see, older adults are leaving a burden. This is not criticism, but merely an observation. I...
by Julie Hall | Oct 18, 2014 | Care for Yourself, The Estate Lady, The Estate Lady Blog
At the end of a very long and taxing week, I felt like I would keel over from the fatigue of cleaning out a challenging estate several floors up in an affluent high-rise community. There were many rules: you can’t use the elevator when …, you can’t...
by Julie Hall | Oct 8, 2014 | Antiques, Great Depression, The Estate Lady Blog, Trash or Treasure?
The world seems to be much smaller than it used to be; the same is true of our living space. I think we humans have a problem with buying and collecting too much. Two questions baffle me, even after all these years of handling estates: Why do we collect so much...
by Julie Hall | Oct 3, 2014 | Care for Yourself, Simplify stuff now, The Estate Lady Blog
In the last 6 months, I have had about 15 clients preparing to leave the U.S. Several are headed to Costa Rica, one to Belize, and the others mostly Belgium and Switzerland. A couple of others are selling off all their worldly possessions and traveling the country,...
by Julie Hall | Sep 25, 2014 | Estate Finds, For executors, For professionals, The Estate Lady Blog, Trash or Treasure?
As an appraiser, I have to understand the definition of Fair Market Value (FMV). As confusing as FMV can sometimes be for the professional, I can imagine how convoluted it must be for the lay person. Under the United States Treasury regulation 1.170-1(c), Fair Market...
