Authorpreneur Dashboard – Leonard Paul Hood
Yours, Mine & Ours
Business & Investing
"If you are a member of a blended family, this is the handbook to enable your estate plan to assure that your financial wealth will lead to your family's future well-being. Read it, follow its wisdom and practices, and smile." —James (Jay) E. Hughes Jr, Author of Complete Family Wealth and Family: The Compact Among Generations
As parents, we spend our lives caring and providing for our children. However, many of us lack the foresight to create a plan that will ensure our children are supported even after we are gone. Parents neglect to handle their estates and affairs during their lifetime and leave their grieving children drowning in paperwork and tough decisions. It is even more demanding and grueling for stepchildren and members of blending families to sort through these estates. As a member of a blended family himself, tax attorney Paul Hood has pooled his personal and professional knowledge to create this comprehensive guide to estate planning for blended families. In Yours, Mine & Ours, Hood offers real-world advice while cover crucial topics such as:
- Property Ownership
- Documents for Planning
- Important Payers in Planning
- Challenges One will Face
- Words of Wisdom
When nearly 70% of estate plans yield unfavorable results for the family, the need for a meticulous estate plan cannot be overstated. Hood’s guide to estate planning will allow individuals to rest assured that their families are provided for thoroughly.
Rough-Cut Book Bubbles from Yours, Mine & Ours
Introduction Sets Tone For Book
This is to introduce my book on estate planning for people who have blended or stepfamilies. In the introduction to the book, I first define "estate planning" and what I mean by a "blended family," and I give examples to illustrate how different blended families can be. I wrote this book because blended family clients were always my most challenging clients, and there was little guidance for blended families who were grappling with estate planning.Then life happened to me, and I had my own blended family. The Introduction sets the tone for the rest of the book, which is a deep dive into the nuances of blended family estate planning.
Buy-Sell Agreements
Business & Investing
“Paul's book is written in plain language that even a client can understand, yet it still manages to cover virtually all of the key issues that a business owner needs to address…. Buy this book.” —Howard M. Zaritsky, Esq., co-author, Structuring Buy-Sell Agreements: Analysis with Forms, Second Edition.
“Paul is extremely knowledgeable about buy-sell agreements, valuation and estate planning for the business owner. He clearly has a passion for the topic and depth of experience that shows throughout the breadth of the work.” —Edwin P. Morrow III, J.D., LL.M., CFP®, Huntington National Bank, co-author, The Tools & Techniques of Estate Planning (19th Ed.)
A buy-sell agreement (BSA) must set the rules of transition for a closely-held business. Author L. Paul Hood, Jr. shares 30+ years of experience writing BSAs to help business owners avoid the ugly consequences of a poorly drafted BSA. You’ll learn about:
- Types of BSA agreements
- BSA trigger events
- Tax consequences of BSAs
- Best practices for best outcomes
Filled with expert information, handy checklists, and useful templates, Buy-Sell Agreements: The Last Will & Testament for Your Business will help you prepare a quality BSA as well as be the lifeline for your business in times of transition.
Book Bubbles from Buy-Sell Agreements
Buy-Sell Agreement Valuation Method to Avoid
One of the biggest recurring mistakes that I encounter in buy-sell agreements is the use of an agreed upon set price in the agreement. Usually, the parties agree to revisit the price regularly, which usually is included in an accompanying schedule to the buy-sell agreement: usually schedule A. Hence, the name Schedule A method. As I discuss, life usually intervenes, and the well-intentioned owners never revisit what they initially intended to be a temporary price-until a triggering event occurs. As I say in the book, avoid the Schedule A mehod like the plague. www.paulhoodservices.com
Evaluating & selecting professional advisors
During my career, I have had lots of experience selecting and working with professional advisors. I offer my experience and lessons learned in this book bubble.
What type of buy-sell agreement is right for
The choice of the type of buy-sell agreement to use is one of the most common mistakes that people and their professional advisors make in the buy-sell agreement process. For me, the answer was almost always the hybrid form of buy-sell agreement, which can take aspects of both the redemption and cross-purchase forms of buy-sell agreements. I chose the hybrid form almost always because its flexibility enabled me to design a buy-sell agreement that would closely fit the unique circumstances of the owners of the business.
Why a chapter for professional advisors?
While I wrote this book for lay people, non-lawyers, etc., I thought that it would be very helpful for the profesional advisor. One matter that I was tangentially involved in many years ago at the beginning of my legal career involved defending a former lawyer, who was now a federal judge, in a legal malpractice case inviolving frankly some unfortunately ambiguous language that the lawyer now judge had put into a buy-sell agreement that became the center of a bitter controversy among the former owners of the subject company, which eventually culminated in the malpractice case aginst the former lawyer now a federal judge. Even though I was still a baby lawyer at the time, I just remember wondering what possessed the lawyer now judge to put such an obviously problematic term into the buy-sell agreement. Surely he knew better, I thought? Unfortunately, this has been a recurring theme throughout my professional career. I just found that few lawyers drafted really good buy-sell agreements. Therefore, when I wrote this book, I thought it imperative that I include a chapter for professional advisors. I hope you enjoy it
For me, this book is personal
I was always extra driven as a lawyer or estate planning consultant when I was dealing with an issue involving a buy-sell agreement for a closely-held business. In my experience, very few buy-sell agreements are drafted very well. I intend this book to help you make your buy-sell agreement a good one.
