Las Vegas Business And Real Estate Blog

It takes ingenuity, determination and creativity to be successful in business, whether one is part of a large company or a small operation. Business owners usually have the ambition and self-motivation to make their companies a success. However, there likely is not a single business owner in Nevada who has not faced certain situation that can cause trepidation, like when legal issues are involved.

Fortunately, the good news is that business owners can get through legal problems and even business litigation with the right approach. Businesspeople are problem solvers, and one of the best ways to solve a problem -- whether it is a breach of contract, property development or business formation, among others -- is to get the right information about the potential legal options.

For many Nevada residents, the primary goal of the estate planning process is avoiding probate. Probate can be a time-consuming process, and can also drain assets from the estate in question. So, how can Nevada residents design their estate plans to avoid probate?

Well, for starters, it is important to examine exactly how one's assets are owned. Take, for example, real estate. If a person owns real estate as the sole owner of the property, there must be a process to pass ownership of the real estate to someone else upon the owner's death. That process, typically, is accomplished through probate. However, if a person, while alive, brings the person who they want to inherit the property into the ownership of the property to make that individual a "joint tenant with a right of survivorship," then, when one of the owners dies, the other takes ownership of the entire parcel of property -- no probate needed.

Anyone in Nevada who has been party to a real estate transaction -- either residential or commercial -- knows that these types of transactions can be complicated, with many different moving parts before it is all said and done. For starters, there is the anxiety and excitement of actually attempting to find a parcel of property to purchase. Next, it is the contemplation of the sale price and whether or not it is realistic. And then, most crucially, comes the time to make an offer to purchase the real estate.

This is the point at which potential negotiations get serious and the potential for a dispute becomes real. However, a recent article noted one option that many buyers are using to make this initial engagement a bit smoother: a letter of intent. As the recent article pointed out, such a letter -- which is usually brief, perhaps even just one page -- can be more helpful to a seller to gauge the buyer's interest in the real estate than a proposed purchase agreement that can be several pages long and full of complex details.

One of the main reasons that Nevada residents make comprehensive estate plans is to avoid the potential for probate litigation when the time for the plan to be implemented comes. No one likes to think of their heirs and beneficiaries being tied up in the probate court system fighting over assets. However, the reality is that probate litigation is common enough. So, what are the common causes of probate litigation in Nevada?

Well, for starters, there may be a claim that the planner lacked the "testamentary capacity" to execute the estate plan in question. This means that someone is asserting that the planner may not have had the mental capacity to fully understand the assets that are included in the estate plan, and may not have understood the instructions in the estate plan as to who should receive certain assets. Testamentary capacity is one of the base fundamentals of estate planning -- if someone does not have the capacity to execute an estate plan, the estate plan may not be valid.