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All too often, small businesses imagine compliance with federal and state rules and regulations are the concerns of the big fish in the pond, that their noncompliance will go unseen, that sound compliance procedures and policies are not an essential part of the business build. But this isn’t so. The smallest company can be reached by state and federal regulations, and a lack of compliance is exposure. What might happen? Compliance irregularities leave a business...

People in New Jersey may have wills or they may not when they pass away. Whether they have a will or not though does not change the fact that most of the time administration of their estate needs to go through probate. This is the legal process that allows people to transfer the property of the deceased to beneficiaries and pay any creditors they owed at the time of their death. If people did have...

If you own a business in the Garden State and you want to pass it on to your family members as part of your estate plan, you need to consider some key steps and concepts. New Jersey business succession planning is the process of preparing for the transfer of ownership and management of your business when you retire, die or become incapacitated. Identify your goals and objectives What do you want to achieve with your...

Although you’ve put in a lot of thought and work to create your initial estate plan, it’s important to realize that these documents should change as major life events occur. Otherwise, your estate assets might end up passing down to someone you never intended to inherit in the first place. Neglecting to update your estate plan can also create confusion, which could lead to litigation over your estate. As a result, your loved ones might...

Being appointed an executor for an estate in New Jersey comes with many responsibilities. As part of your executor duties, you must identify and locate all estate assets, value them and distribute them to the intended heirs and/or use them to pay off the estate debts. Once you have identified and located the assets, you need to prepare an inventory of the state. The inventory should also include the estate’s debts. It can help to...

The initial and most important decision for prospective business owners concerns business structure. For numerous reasons, the most popular type, the limited liability corporation (LLC), melds the advantages of a partnership with those of a corporation. Despite that, people recommend that the entity have an operating agreement to address issues that state law would otherwise determine. How many topics should the agreement address? A written document, the operating agreement is a legal contract that provides...

When they are planning their estates, many New Jersey residents have their adult children and grandchildren as their top priorities. They hope to leave a legacy that will make life easier for their loved ones into future generations. One way to do this is by creating a trust that will protect assets and provide income for many years to come. For parents of children who have special needs, the goals are similar: They want their...

Like other states, New Jersey’s probate process relies on an estate administrator to gather a deceased person’s property, pay off all valid claims and distribute the balance to the person’s heirs. The property they have authority over is not their own. It belongs to a person’s estate and will ultimately go to the heirs. This is why the administrator has what is called a fiduciary duty to the estate. An estate administrator is not the...

Many married couples in New Jersey find that starting a business together is the best way to support their families and work toward their goals. However, if the couple eventually decides to get divorced, both parties may be concerned about what will happen to the business they worked so hard to build. Is the business marital property? The first step is often to determine whether the business assets are marital property. If the business was...

If you just beginning to form a new business, undoubtedly, you will have done your research and have learned about the process for starting a new business and the steps that you should follow to establish your business and in what specific order those steps need to be followed. Before you can even establish your business, you must choose a business structure so that you can run your business, register it and pay taxes. Many...