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Many people believe Estate Planning is only for people who are…
- Extremely Wealthy
- Have an elaborate plan for their assets, or
- Are sick and planning for their death
…But this couldn’t be more wrong!
You, along with all the things you own, make up your “estate.”
Planning your estate is equivalent to making a plan for your entire life – from your family, your posessions, money, property, and more.
Estate planning is not death planning
Estate Planning is
LIFE planning.
Planning your estate should be comprehensive and take into account all the many factors and features that make up your life. To be truly effective, your strategy should involve the collaboration between your estate planning attorney and the other trusted advisors who help to keep your assets and property properly managed. This means involving your financial advisor, real estate agents, insurance advisors, and when necessary, even other attorneys in your estate plan strategy.
It’s vital that your estate strategy and planning be properly maintained all throughout your lifetime by someone who has taken the time to get to know you and your family, and be invested and committed to serving you and your family.
If you fail to make a plan during your life, your family will be left to figure things out without any guidance from you – and worse, is at the mercy of what the laws in your state say WILL happen to your property.
This means your property may go to people you don’t want, and in ways that you never intended.
Our estate planning process will guide you through uncovering your hopes, fears, and expectations - all the things that are most important to you.
When done properly, estate planning requires that a trained attorney lead you through one or more in-depth meetings to uncover hopes, fears, and expectations for yourself – and for those who are most important to you. This process almost always requires the preparations of several sophisticated legal documents, but those documents themselves are not “estate planning.” Planning is a process, represented by a complete strategy that is properly documented and maintained by a professional who has taken the time to get to know you, and who is committed to continuing to serve you throughout your lifetime.
Your estate plan is a snapshot of you, your family, your assets and the tax laws in effect - at the time it was created.
All of these change over time, and so should your plan. It is unreasonable to expect the simple will written when you were a newlywed to be effective now that you have a growing family, or now that you are divorced from your spouse, or now that you are retired and have grandchildren. Over the course of your lifetime, your estate plan will need check-ups, maintenance, tweaking or possibly even replacing.
Proper Estate Planning is Dynamic.
Your plans will need to change as your life does. This means estate planning is not a ‘once and done’ kind of thing, but rather an ongoing, lifelong process.
Your estate plan needs to reflect your current life, situation & circumstances (not the life you had when you initially made the plan) so it can be effective when the time comes.
So, how do you know when it’s time to give your estate plan a check-up?
Generally, any change in your personal, family, financial or health situation, or a change in the tax laws, could prompt a change in your estate plan.
By listening to and understanding your needs and expectations, we carefully create estate plans that are custom-designed to meet your goals.
We can help you create a basic Last Will and Testament with your Healthcare Directives, Powers of Attorney and other ancillary documents, or a more complex Trust-based Estate Plan with additional wealth preserving features.
A Trust-based estate plan is a more advanced legal plan that includes special legal documents that shield your assets from Probate, provide privacy, and give you more control over how your wealth and belongings are managed.
Once you have your estate plan in place, it’s very important to keep it up-to-date as your life changes.
If you get married, divorced, buy or sell property, have children or grandchildren, or any other change in circumstance occurs – your estate plan should be re-evaluated to ensure it still aligns and reflects your circumstances and wishes. Otherwise, it could be ineffective – or worse, carry out wishes you no longer want.
Your plan can be rendered partially or completely useless or ineffective if it doesn’t do what you want or need it to do – and worse, does something you no longer want it to!
Whether you need a simple estate plan or just a basic will, or need a complex trust and full financial and estate planning, we can help! If you already have an estate plan, let us perform a comprehensive review to ensure your assets are protected and appropriately designated. We can meet you virtually or arrange for you to come in to our office. We’re here to help!
Try our ONLINE Estate Plan Review Tool!
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