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Consider the life cycle of your business: formation, growth, stewardship, and succession. Formation involves the where, what, how and why. Why determines the potential exit strategies: succession.

Reverse mortgages sometimes may be necessary. They can provide an additional source of funds for individuals who have equity in their home but have insufficient income to cover the costs of a healthcare emergency or some other shortfall.

Businesses have a duty to always act ethically with their partners and customers. This includes not misleading others through your business dealings. When the practices of a business become deceptive, they become illegal, and are therefore prohibited by state law.

When a person dies with an estate plan that was well-drafted and kept up to date, the results are often uneventful and as the decedent wished. The property is transferred or if it is in a trust, the successor trustee takes over and handles the particulars of the operation of the trust.

Doing business means you enter into contracts regularly. You purchase services and supplies from vendors. You hire workers, employees, and contractors. You may offer products and supplies to others. Day-to-day business requires regular contractual agreements.

The incoming Trump administration has a made a goal of ending the federal estate tax. You may think this simplifies estate planning or makes it unnecessary. In reality, only about 2 percent of estates are ever subject to the federal estate tax, so for most individuals, the presence of that tax has never been much of a concern.

Estate planning is often looked at as being somewhat dull. Wills, trusts, powers of attorney can all seem unexciting. For one, much of these instruments are concerned with the future. Some, like a will, only becomes effective upon one's death and no one really wants to spend much time thinking on that subject.

Estate planning is one of those things most people know they should do, but like many things, they often put it off, believing that it is not the highest priority today.

Next year, there will be some changes to Ohio's transfer-on-death affidavits and deeds for real estate. Under the old law, there was always a chance that someone could overlook this after a divorce and property could transfer inadvertently to their former spouse.

One concern of many estate plans is wealth preservation and transfer. Often, parents want to see the fruits of their lifetime's labor benefit their children and grandchildren.