
Kirk Kaplan
Crest Key Legal and Accounting Partners
Every estate plan will be implemented, even the one you fail to create. Your goal should be to create a plan to speak for you when you cannot toward maintaining harmony among everyone important to you and minimizing the most likely unintended beneficial interest in your estate - lawyers.
I am passionate about helping people create and enforce their estate plan with a focus to exclude lawyer predators. Here is why: My over 20 years of practicing law and accounting has revealed a common theme that runs through all trust litigation--legal formality during incapacity and after death OFTEN UNDERMINES family understandings that predatory lawyers exploit. Failing to account for family understandings many times causes catastrophic plan failures that unintentionally favor a child to the detriment of other children and their attorneys, and usually causes significant financial and psychological strain on all involved. For example, people are surprised to find out provisions in a trust to protect a child from a creditor like a credit card company will be used by that child as a reason not to repay amounts the child owes a parent after the parent dies. Situations like this are addressed in estate plans clients create with me. Attorneys for these children also advocate the anti alienation clause does not apply and therefore should be paid from the trust estate. We address this issue head-in to prevent lawyers from benefiting from your estate.
A significant part of estate planning is helping people discover and address family understandings to eliminate or mitigate family distress after death. Find a firm with litigation and accounting experience that brings strategic and analytical focus to bear dispensing with clutter towards finding solutions with clear direction for your estate plan to mitigate common traps and reduce or eliminate potential challenges so your interests are protected now and in the future.
- Probate
- Probate Administration, Probate Litigation, Will Contests
- Estate Planning
- Guardianship & Conservatorship Estate Administration, Health Care Directives, Trusts, Wills
- Tax Law
- Business Taxes, Criminal Tax Litigation, Estate Tax Planning, Income Taxes, International Taxes, Payroll Taxes, Property Taxes, Sales Taxes, Tax Appeals, Tax Audits, Tax Planning
- Business Law
- Business Contracts, Business Dissolution, Business Finance, Business Formation, Business Litigation, Franchising, Mergers & Acquisitions, Partnership & Shareholder Disputes
- Trust Litigation
- Free Consultation
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Credit Cards Accepted
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- Colorado
- Colorado Supreme Court
- ID Number: 28498
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- Nevada
- State Bar of Nevada
- ID Number: 5685
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- English
- Senior Associate
- Jones Vargas
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- Estate, Probate and Taxation.
- Western Michigan University Cooley Law School
- J.D. (1996)
- Honors: Cum Laude
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- Regis University
- B.S. (1986) | Accounting and Business Administration
- Honors: Cum Laude
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- AV Preeminent Rated
- Martindale-Hubbell
- Top Lawyer
- Desert Companion Magazine
- Colorado Bar Association Public And Legal Services
- Member
- - Current
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- Nevada State Bar  # 5685
- Member
- - Current
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- American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
- Member
- - Current
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- Nevada Society of Certified Public Accountants
- Member
- - Current
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- Estate Planning in Nevada
- DC Publications
- Sale of Probate Property in Probate, Guardianship and Powers of Attorney, FIRPTA, las Vegas, Nevda
- Crest Key Legal and Accounting Sponsored
- Best practicus to expedite sales of real property and minimize court involvement.
- Probate In Nevada and Foreign Investment In Real Property Transfer Act, Las Vegas
- Fidelity National Title Company
- Certified Public Accountant
- Nevada State Board of Accountancy
- Website
- Crest Key
- Q. Can I withdraw funds from my recently deceased dad's fiduciary bank account if I'm on it & no one else will contest it?
- A: Appears your father died with a guardianship over his person and property. If so, final pleadings advising the guardianship court of his death. This will close out the guardianship. If your father died with the bank account you say no one else has an interest in the account, and you are not a pay on death devisee. Nevada law says the account is subject to probate, along with other assets with just his name thereon, and which have no pay on death designation. You take great risk taking the account without a court order causing significant negative effects upon you is someone does have a valid claim on your account, and where you have not paid your father's creditors. Your comment: "I ... Read More
- Q. I live in nevada but my father died 5 days ago in Cairo egypt. How do I get my Inheritance and life insurance policy's
- A: An attorney familiar with Egyptian law will very likely provide a much better answer than I will. But just in case one does not leave an answer, maybe my answer will be a good start. In the US, the laws governing how property passes to heirs/descendants, depends upon residence of the deceased at death. In other words where did the deceased reside when s/he died? The law existing where the deceased died governs how personal property (things you can pick up, including cash and securities) pass to surviving heirs/descendants. Also governing law may allow for an instrument to dispose of property; in the US and many parts of the world this instrument is known as a Last Will. So the direction this ... Read More
- Q. Can you sue an administrator of a probate because you were never notified of the death. They sold house.
- A: I am so sorry to read what you father did to you. I suspect, but do not know for sure, you have no cause of action against the administrator. Other colleagues of mine may think differently. Here is what I think happened: Your father placed your step-mother on title as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. That way she got the house at his death. Whether you father understood his action, his naming your step-mother as a joint tenant disinherited you. By operation of law, she was the survivor, and thus received the full title to the house without probate. To check out whether my suspicion is correct, you will need to find the deed that was vested (recorded) at the date of your father's ... Read More