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Dear healthwellness82@gmail.com, Can you trust everyone in your family? Don’t be so quick to say yes -- every year, siblings and cousins steal billions of dollars from unwitting family members who never even know it happens. Robert C. Adamski, JD, author of the book Inheritance Hijackers: Who Wants to Steal Your Inheritance and How to Protect It, explains how cunning family members steal from one another without getting caught -- and tells what you can do today to protect your future assets. There is potentially life-changing news for stroke patients -- new research shows that with the right kind of care, stroke patients can continue to improve for years after the event. Daniel F. Hanley, MD, neurologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explains this promising new finding. All the best,  Jessica Kent Editor BottomLineSecrets.com Inheritance Hijackers Robert C. Adamski, JD Burandt, Adamski, Grossman & Powell, LLP Americans are due to inherit more than $100 trillion in the coming two decades. Unfortunately, billions of those dollars will be stolen before they reach their rightful heirs. Inheritance hijacking is a huge problem, yet it frequently goes unreported. Heirs often do not know or cannot prove that inheritances have been stolen from them. These would-be heirs lose more than money. They also lose an important final connection to their departed loved ones. An inheritance might have served as a final positive memory of the deceased -- instead, the theft of money and/or valuables leaves survivors with feelings of victimization and additional loss. It’s usually not career criminals who steal inheritances. The thief is far more likely to be a family member or someone else trusted by the deceased, such as a caregiver or a financial representative. Often these inheritance hijackers aren’t even in financial need. They simply feel entitled to the money or valuables... or are trying to take revenge against another heir for some perceived slight. Biggest Threats Inheritance hijacking takes many forms. Here are five of the greatest dangers and how to protect your estate... Outright theft. It’s not uncommon for valuables, such as jewelry or antiques, to disappear from the deceased’s home before, during or after the funeral. This could be the work of a burglar -- criminals occasionally target victims by reading the obituaries and breaking in when the deceased’s family members are at the funeral or funeral home. It is far more likely, however, that the missing valuables have been snatched by someone with a legitimate reason to be in the house, such as a family member who wants to grab a treasured possession before other relatives get their chance... or an in-home caregiver who takes the items as a sort of do-it-yourself severance payment. Self-defense: Make a list of valuables, and distribute it among family members. Then move the valuables to a bank safe-deposit box. Alternately, ask a trusted relative to move them somewhere safe right after your death. (Let other family members know that you have requested this, to avoid any suggestion that this relative is stealing.) Undocumented loans. A family member requests and receives a loan from an elderly relative, then after the relative dies, denies that the loan existed... or claims that the money was a gift, not a loan. Because family loans rarely are written down, other heirs often do not realize that money is missing... or cannot prove that it was stolen even if they do. Self-defense: Insist that any loans you make to anyone in the family be fully documented and signed. Keep these loan documents with your other important financial papers. Also, make a copy to store outside your home, perhaps with a trusted relative or your estate-planning attorney. Remember to update loan documents to reflect any repayments made or missed by the borrower. Denigration of fellow heirs. An heir lies to an elderly relative about the behavior or financial status of other potential heirs in hopes that these people will be written out of the will. Examples: "Don’t trust Jack with money. He has a gambling problem. He’ll just waste it." Or, "Sally’s a millionaire. She doesn’t need your money." Self-defense: Seek confirmation of any claims about your heirs that affect your asset-distribution plans. Undue influence. A family member or caregiver builds a very close relationship with an elderly person in order to coerce or confuse the person into leaving him/her a larger inheritance. Self-defense: The best defense against being overly influenced by any one person is to maintain close ties with many family members. Forgery. A family member or trusted adviser prepares a fake will or a fake amendment to a real will that gives the forger a greater share of the estate. Self-defense: Distribute copies of your will and other estate-planning documents among your heirs. Ask your attorney to keep copies, too. This greatly decreases the odds of forgeries. It also prevents the will from disappearing if one descendant discovers that he has been given less than he thinks he deserves. Example: A man leaves the lion’s share of his estate to his younger son, who is disabled and cannot support himself. His older son destroys the will. By law, when no will is found, each son receives half of the father’s estate. MORE WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR ESTATE The following steps can greatly increase the odds that your assets will reach your intended heirs... Hire a specialist to create your estate plan. A will and other estate-plan documents that you create yourself or that are written by lawyers with limited estate experience are more likely to be successfully contested than those created by experienced estate-planning attorneys. Be honest with the attorney about your heirs. Are any of them the type who might feel entitled to more than you intend to leave them? Discuss your assets and estate plan with your entire family, ideally while everyone is gathered together. If your whole family knows about your assets and how you intend to divide them before you die, it is much more difficult for one family member to circumvent your plans later. Appoint at least two executors for your estate. Make one of the two a trust company, financial planner, attorney or some other professional not in your family. Appointing multiple executors makes it far less likely that an executor will take advantage of his position to steal from your estate. Give assets to your heirs before you die. This ensures that the assets wind up where you want them to go... and lets you see your heirs enjoy them. Ask your financial planner or tax preparer how to minimize any tax problems created by large gifts. Insist that the executors of your estate share details about the estate’s expenses, assets and financial transfers with all of your beneficiaries. Your estate-planning attorney can write this disclosure requirement into your will. Such disclosures make it much harder for an executor to hide theft. Reconsider your estate plan before remarrying. Someone who remarries tends to assume that his new spouse will treat the children from the first marriage fairly during the estate-distribution process. In reality, such children may end up receiving a smaller share of the estate than the deceased intended -- or nothing at all. The new spouse -- or the new spouse’s heirs -- may put his own financial interests first. Ask your estate-planning attorney about QTIP trusts, bypass trusts, contracts for wealth and other tools that can help you protect the interests of your children from your previous marriage(s). Also, consider a prenuptial agreement that protects your children. Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Robert C. Adamski, JD, partner with the law firm of Burandt, Adamski, Grossman & Powell, LLP, in Cape Coral, Florida. www.rcadamski.com. He has handled more than 1,000 inheritance disputes during his 30-plus years as an attorney. He is author of Inheritance Hijackers: Who Wants to Steal Your Inheritance and How to Protect It (Ovation).  Stroke Patients May Improve Years After Their Strokes Daniel F. Hanley, MD Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Even two to three years after their strokes, patients still can learn to use undamaged areas of the brain to perform tasks, especially if their physical therapy includes long-term, supervised walking on a treadmill. Physical therapy typically is prescribed for only 30 to 60 days following a stroke because, until recently, it was believed that patients could make significant improvements only within that time frame. Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Daniel F. Hanley, MD, department of neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, and leader of a study published in Stroke.  Blast Away High Cholesterol. Lose 67 Points in Just 28 Days Important: Help your friends get much more out of life -- forward this E-letter to them. Better: Send it to many friends and your whole family. This is a free weekly e-mail service of BottomLineSecrets.com and Boardroom Inc. Boardroom Inc. 281 Tresser Boulevard Stamford, CT 06901-3229 ATTN: Web Team You received this e-mail because you have requested it. You are on the mailing list as healthwellness82@gmail.com. Or... a friend forwarded it to you. Disclaimer: Bottom Line Secrets publishes the opinions of expert authorities in many fields. 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