Effective the tax year beginning April 1, 2019, the amount of interest taxpayers must pay on real estate tax not paid within thirty days after bills are made drops to 8% from the current rate of 12%. The interest rate on properties subject to a tax lien drop to 14% from 18%. This is good news for taxpayers, and long overdue. Despite the … [Read more...]
New Hampshire Won’t Tax You to Death for Putting Real Estate into Your Revocable Trust
When New Hampshire real estate is sold in a typical transaction and ownership is transferred to the buyer, the seller has to pay Real Estate Transfer Tax (“RETT”) and the buyer also has to pay RETT. If you have sold or bought real estate in New Hampshire, it is likely that you paid your one-half share of thousands of dollars of RETT. Under Chapter … [Read more...]
New Hampshire Superior Court Strikes Down Use of Restrictive Voter Registration Process in Upcoming Elections
On Monday, Superior Court Justice Kenneth C. Brown granted a temporary injunction preventing the State of New Hampshire from imposing new voter registration forms in the upcoming 2018 election. In 2017, several Republican New Hampshire senators sponsored SB3 (“SB3”), a bill amending New Hampshire’s voter registration process to include stricter … [Read more...]
A Mortgage is No Excuse to Be Without an Estate Plan
There are many benefits to having a properly drafted estate plan, such as knowing that your family’s finances will not be frozen by the mandatory probate administration process and can make sure that your assets go to the people you want them to go to – instead of getting distributed according to state law for when a person dies without an estate … [Read more...]
Neighborly Tricks: Our Top Three Legal Shenanigans of Neighbors
As Halloween approaches, many minds turn to autumn themes—pumpkins, parties, and, of course, trick or treating with neighbors. But neighborly tricks aren’t exclusive to Halloween or children; in fact, some of the most complex neighborly hijinks are committed by adults and invite legal intervention rather than innocent mischief. Here’s our list of … [Read more...]
Owning Property Together
Many people own a house jointly with their spouse - or partner, friend, or family - often as joint tenants with rights of survivorship (“JTROS”). This means the couple owns the house together equally, and if one of them dies the other retains full ownership automatically. The default in NH is to own property as “tenants in common” meaning each … [Read more...]
Cut from the Trust!
When leaving a gift to a child in a will, people often want the gift to pass to the child’s children should the child die before the grantor. In fact, New Hampshire has a statute stating that if a child is not mentioned in a will, and the child is not expressly excluded from the will, then that child receives whatever gift he or she would have … [Read more...]
Hey – Who Are These People? (Public Easements by Prescription)
If you tolerate a few members of the general public to cross your land for twenty years, you may have opened the door to the entire general public crossing your land. The legal theory is called a “public easement.” A desire to access lakes and public recreational land are ripe situations for the creation of these types of rights. Prior to … [Read more...]
Estate Planning Lessens the Burden on Your Family
Assets are not just about houses and large bank accounts. Cars, clothing, books, and other personal property are all assets that become part of an estate when someone dies. Surviving family members cannot just immediately clean out and sell a house. It is impossible to predict when something will happen to us or a loved one and that is why estate … [Read more...]
“Ain’t No Way” To Resolve Without Probate- Aretha Franklin’s Intestate Estate
Aretha Franklin was undoubtedly one of the most influential American songstresses in recent memories, with more than 112 charted singled on the Billboard music charts. At the time of her passing on August 16, 2018, Aretha Franklin reportedly had a net worth of $80 million. However, despite her sizable fortune, Ms. Franklin passed without a will or … [Read more...]