by Michael Rapps | Sep 24, 2026 | Hidden Basis
Two brothers nearly ended their relationship over a wristwatch that hadn’t run in years. The estate wasn’t small, and it wasn’t the problem. The house sold, the accounts split down the middle, the business interests transferred — all of it...
by Michael Rapps | Sep 10, 2026 | Hidden Basis
We were most of the way through a design meeting — the one where the plan stops being a conversation and starts being a draft — when the client mentioned, almost in passing, that there was another child. Not included. Not going to be. They could give me the details,...
by Michael Rapps | Aug 28, 2026 | Hidden Basis
My grandfather boiled his eggs in a tin can to save the gas.He turned off light switches behind people mid-sentence. He lived past a hundred and, as far as I know, never once ate a meal in a restaurant. He’d grown up with nothing, and the nothing never fully left him...
by Michael Rapps | Aug 14, 2026 | Hidden Basis
A successor trustee called me eighteen months into the job, technically with a question about an investment account.We spent ten minutes on the account. We spent an hour on everything else.She was administering her mother’s trust for herself and two siblings. On...
by Michael Rapps | Jul 31, 2026 | Hidden Basis
A father offered to pay the premiums on a life insurance policy for his newly married son. Generous, obviously. He also kept himself as the owner of the policy.Another client set up a separate account for her daughter — funded quietly, growing nicely — that the...
