Bagels & Legacy with Atty. Richard Gaberman
“Practical…highly informative…invaluable”
“Practical…highly informative…invaluable”
Atty. Richard Gaberman
Yet, he said, the legal task of estate planning is the one that individuals put off the longest.
He acknowledged the value of the soft approach of Create a Jewish Legacy, asking loyal constituents to remember an organization in their will and to sign a Letter of Intent to do. But he cautioned the group that should a potential donor pass away before formalizing the Letter of Intent by making a provision in a will, the intended gift may never come to fruition.
Therefore, even though it can be difficult for Legacy Team members to broach this topic, it’s critical to know whether the promise has been formalized. “It’s not unreasonable to ask someone for verification or confirmation,” he said, commenting further that organizations could actually be “cheating themselves” by not following up.
Responding to the question of legal costs as a barrier to one’s seeing a lawyer about a Create a Jewish Legacy commitment, he assured us that costs should be minimal for adding a codicil to a will for smaller bequests. There are even websites from which one can download a codicil and have it signed and notarized to create a legal document. Of course, when provisions are made for higher amounts, the legal arrangements can be more complex.
Atty. Gaberman did point out that bequest provisions can be vague and therefore difficult to carry out, particular when donors opt to bequeath a percentage of their estate. He carefully explained the importance of a donor’s defining exactly the portion of the estate to which the designated bequest percentage should be applied.
He praised the plan of the Sinai Temple team to send a letter in June gently reminding Letter of Intent signers to see their attorney. A good form of bequest verification would be a letter from the attorney stating that the organization is in the donor’s will. Even better would be the inclusion with attorney’s letter of a copy of the portion of the will pertaining to the bequest.
According to Atty. Gaberman, once an individual has made the provision, there is a high likelihood that it will remain in the will and even increase, depending on the quality of the stewardship and other factors.
An advocate of endowment and specifically legacy giving, Atty. Gaberman closed by offering to continue to be an informational resource for Create a Jewish Legacy teams.
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