Decisions that you make that provide for:

• the preservation of the present and future financial security for yourself and your family, with appropriate legal safeguards,
• the distribution of your property to your family after you have passed on,
• the appointment of a guardian for your minor children in the event of your death,
• your healthcare in the final stages of your life, or
• for the management of the financial affairs and the preservation of the financial security and healthcare of your aging parent or disabled child,

are some of the most personal, most difficult, and most profound decisions that you will ever make.  Failing to properly plan for these eventualities and failing to seek seasoned legal advice in order to make those proper plans can result in devastating consequences for your loved ones.

For thirty-three years Ohio Probate and Estate Planning attorney Arnold Shaheen has carefully counseled his clients so that they might make those difficult decisions in ways that protect their legal interests and those of their families.  And when a death has occurred, Mr. Shaheen has been there to guide and to assist the families of deceased clients through probate proceedings and the legal issues that necessarily follow.

Mr. Shaheen can provide you with the following legal services:

ESTATE PLANNING:

Preparation of:

• Wills
• Trusts
• Durable General Powers of Attorney
• Living Wills
• Healthcare Powers of Attorney

Counsultations regarding:

• Your estate plan, including the legal benefits that each of the documents listed above provides.
• The best choice for an executor, trustee, guardian, or attorney-in-fact.
• Guardianships for minor children, disabled children, or aged parents.

• Beneficiary designations and their impact upon estate plans, including potential tax consequences, of the following:
  • Life insurance policies.
  • 401(k) Retirement Accounts.
  • Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).
  • Pensions.
  • Payable on death and transferable on death bank and brokerage accounts.
  • Real estate owned as joint tenants with right of survivorship or with a transferable on death beneficiary designation.
  • Motor vehicles owned as joint tenants with right of survivorship or with a transferable on death beneficiary designation.

PROBATE LITIGATION:

Because of ambiguities in documents, embezzlement, the claims of creditors, or because of disputes within families or among beneficiaries, litigation over probate matters sometimes becomes necessary.  When it does, Mr. Shaheen can provide you with legal representation in the following types of probate litigation, which may need to be filed in the probate court or in the common pleas court:

• A declaratory judgment action to seek a court interpretation of a will, trust, or other document or a court determination as to whom an asset belongs to.
• A claim against an estate.
• Will contest actions.
• An action to set aside a will that is no longer effective due to the predecease of its named beneficiaries and their lineal descendants.
• An action to object to the inventory.
• An action to object to an account.
• An action to remove the fiduciary.
• An action to recover assets stolen from an estate.
• An action to recover assets stolen from a mentally or physically incapacitated person through the abuse of a power of attorney.

NOTABLE ENGAGEMENTS:

• Jury verdict in the Licking County Common Pleas Court in the amount of $162,529 (2008 inflation adjusted dollars) in favor of a home health care provider that provided in home health care services to the decedent for seven years without being paid.
• Litigation in Franklin County Probate Court that resulted in a recovery of  $154,426 (2008 inflation adjusted dollars) for diamonds and money stolen from the decedent during her lifetime through the abuse of a power of attorney.  The result required the invalidation of two wills, the removal of an appointed executor and the appointment of a successor fiduciary, and suit against a prominent Franklin County jeweler for the loss of an $18,000 diamond ring entrusted to the jeweler for safekeeping.
• The estate of a decedent was saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal estate taxes after it was discovered that his surviving spouse was a resident alien and, thus, not entitled to claim the federal marital deduction.  With the assistance of tax and immigration co-counsel, an extension of the filing deadline of the federal estate tax return was sought and expedited citizenship proceedings were requested in order that the spouse  could become an American citizen in time for the federal estate tax return to be filled and for the marital deduction to be claimed.
• Litigation in Licking County Common Pleas Court resulted in the recovery of $235,072 (2008 inflation adjusted dollars) for the embezzlement of one sister’s assets by another sister.  The sister whose assets were embezzled suffered from senile dementia and she had granted a power of attorney to her sister to take care of her legal and financial affairs.

For more detailed information please review our Probate & Estate Planning Frequently Asked Questions.