The following is a guest post by Chris Birk of SuretyBondsBlog:

If your list of New Year’s resolutions seems thin, look no further than your estate plan — and make sure you’ve included a waiver of bond for the executor.

Probate bonds can prove a costly headache. Without a will that explicitly waives the need for a probate bond, courts have no choice but to mandate their purchase unless the heirs formally agree that a bond is unnecessary. And even then the court may still deem a probate bond necessary to ensure the estate and its assets are protected and debts are paid.

The absence of a bond waiver ensures that the executor is likely to spend time and money negotiating a financial and legal hurdle in a process that already has its fair share.

Surety companies will also examine the financial and credit history of the executor before issuing a bond. Make

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2010 is going to suck. And if that doesn’t catch your attention in an ad headline, I don’t know what does. You may have heard of this by now. Seen it. Come across the ad in a magazine, perhaps. In any case, it’s one of the components in the suck-less (great double entendre) ad campaign by Nicorette.

Why it caught my eye — other than the clever copy — was that it struck me as being very GenX in tone and style. GenXers (those born in the U.S. between 1961-1981) experience and/or view their generation’s young adulthood years with a whole lot of cynicism and a big dose of Reality Bites! GenXers fol

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Information To Avoid Pitfalls In Owning Investment Rental Property

Owning and operating investment rental property can offer a range of vital advantages. There are potential disadvantages to owning rental property; however, you’ll be able to help to attenuate possible pitfalls by following certain guidelines to protect your real estate investment.

First, continuously make positive that your expectations regarding investing in rental property are cheap and realistic. You should continuously approach the investment of rental property with the goal of achieving a positive cash flow; however, don’t expect that you’ll be ready to shop for a new vacation home within a year.

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CAIRO, Sunday

The decision of an Egyptian appeals committee to approve France Telecom’s latest bid for Mobinil shows Egypt is prepared to protect minority interests, the Egyptian regulator said on Sunday.

Rejected

The committee on Saturday rejected Orascom Telecom’s request that the regulator scrap its decision to allow France Telecom to pay 245 Egyptian pounds ($45) for each share in Mobinil, Egypt’s largest mobile operator by subscribers.

“At the end, we are trying to implement what will achieve the public interest, what will achieve the reputation and stability of the market,” Chairman of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) Ziad Bahaa El-Din told reporters.

The appeals committee overseeing the case is an independent body including members from the State Council, a senior official of the EFSA and a member appointed by the Ministry of Investment.

Orascom said it would challenge the committee’s decision. Orascom and

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We only have a few hours left before the much reviled “death” tax disappears, to be replaced by a complicated and confusing carryover basis regime.

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BARCLAYS and HSBC, the two UK banks which avoided state support at the height of the crisis, posted combined profits of £6bn for the first half of 2009, largely down to much higher investment banking returns.

In contrast, Lloyds lost £4bn, although RBS crept back into the black with a £15m pre-tax profit as it gained its own slice of the investment banking windfall.

Frustration at the depth of the public outrage occasionally burst forth from the bank bosses being pulled between contradictory demands to boost lending in the economy while repairing their battered balance sheets at the same time.

RBS boss Stephen Hester, who is on a potential £9m package to turn the ailing institution around, complained in August: “We sometimes feel as if commentators variously want us to go back to over-lending, to operate on a ‘not-for-profit’ basis, to never entertain a client and to offer employment conditions that deter the best and brightest.

“Oh yes, and at the same time to pull off a recovery enabling taxpayers to recoup the support given.”

But this support came with a heavy price from European competition watchdogs in November as heavy concessions were demanded in return for taxpayer help.

RBS must sell its Churchill and Direct Line insurance arm – parts of its investment banking business – as well as 318 branches of the former Williams & Glyn’s outlets in England and Wales and its NatWest branches in Scotland. Its share of the UK

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