Estate Planning

Don’t Neglect Your Legal Estate Planning Until It’s Too Late!

Let Us Get You on the Right Path. As family advisors, we want the best for you and your family; it’s why we do this. Legal estate planning needs can be met in a variety of ways; it just depends on what the person’s needs are, of course! We are not attorneys and cannot speak to a person’s specific needs, but we can still provide you two important services. Our first service is a list of recommended attorneys at the end of this page. Second, we also know that sometimes people want to prepare their own estate plan, or they just can’t bring themselves to pay an attorney at this point in life. For those of you here, we offer a limited selection of basic estate planning documents that may get you by for a short period of time until you can spend time allowing a professional to fully protect all your needs. If you decide to go it on your own for now, please educate yourself first by coming to understand the information we offer here, and also seek out other learning materials.

The Big Picture. You and your family likely have legal needs you have not thought about. Legal estate planning is an area of life that most American unfortunately have little or no understanding of. While people’s legal needs may be temporarily put off because other activities seem more pressing, there will come a time when legal needs become all-important, and unfortunately, by that point it’s nearly always too late!

Elder Law. Americans are living longer, more productive, and fuller lives than in years past. As our society's life expectancy grows, it becomes increasingly more and more important to plan for our future care. We must actively seek out means of ensuring that our later years will be spent in a comfortable, engaging environment full of love and care.

Couples with Young Children or Disabled Adults. Your greatest pride and joy is your family, and so you need to take special steps to guarantee that no matter what happens, they will be happy, healthy, and enjoy all the opportunities life can provide. This takes thoughtful planning and a little extra effort in monitoring how life unfolds.

The First Question:
Who Needs an Estate Plan?

You have children or disabled adults dependent on you for their support.
You care about the medical care and financial care you would receive if you became disabled.
You care what happens to your property after you die.

For most people, the answer is “yes” to at least one of the three reasons for having an estate plan. Keep reading to learn about your options.

Major Areas of Concern & Planning

Disability planning– assure you get the care you need if an illness or accident occurs.
Asset protection & property maintenance– take steps to protect and maintain your property now, and plan for these needs in the future (including after death).
Ultimate distribution of assets – make certain your property will care for your family properly (both 1st & 2nd marriage families), and that your planning provides creditor protection and prevents the wasting of assets.
Estate taxes – find out if these will affect you, and what you can do about it.

The Documents We Offer

We have put together a simple estate planning package that will work for many people because it covers important legal needs, and in many cases, does everything a package from a professional would. Again, these are NOT custom tailored to fit your life, but through your diligence in determining your legal needs, they may. The documents we offer are:

Last Will & Testament

Identifies the family of you, the testator, to help determine estate claims.
Directs by one possible method how after death to settle the estate expenses and distribute property.

Directs the giving of specific gifts.
Directs the disposition of all other probate estate property

The Solutions

In a nutshell, you need to design smart strategies developed by a careful review of all applicable laws, and executed through carefully tailored documents.

1. Last Will & Testament

Directs how after death to:

Care for minors and disabled adults.
Settle the estate property.
Have other competent and trusted relatives and friends administer the above needs.

2. Living Trust

Holds property during life and directs its management after death.

3. Powers of Attorney

Allows others to make financial and medical decisions for you.
General Durable Power of Attorney.
Health Care Durable Power Of Attorney.

4. Health Care Directive (or Living Will)

Expresses medical preferences during a terminal condition or vegetative state

5. Other Planning Strategies

These often involve trusts and insurance planning

Special Considerations for Seniors

Directing How You are Cared For.

1. Keep Powers of Attorney, both financial and medical, up-to-date, tailored to your circumstances (standard forms aren’t enough!), and easy to locate.

2. Discuss your Living Will with your doctor, and revise it as your health needs change.

3. Consider a Care Management Trust to give more detailed instructions to medical and financial caregivers, and to enlist overseers of those primary caregivers.

Cover the Costs of Long Term Care.

1. Evaluate financial resources carefully, and look at every option.

2. Consider a Special Needs Trust to provide for basic comforts while remaining qualified for government assistance programs.

3. Consider Long Term Care Insurance options to cover the costs of retirement communities, nursing homes, etc.

4. Understand Medicaid Planning and its pitfalls well in advance (generally at least 5 years).

Whether to Hire a Lawyer

After an initial attempt to wrap your mind around this area of your life, you need to decide whether to use a lawyer to help you. While we generally do recommend people seek out a competent estate planning attorney in his or her state to give advice tailored to suit personal needs, this is ultimately up to each individual. There is no legal requirement that you use an attorney. However, we do discourage going to a nonlawyer. He or she would be practicing law without a license, and he likely doesn’t keep up with all legal requirements and possible strategies. Most importantly, you will feel that you can rely on his knowledge to make up for your lack of knowledge, and this just isn’t true! Nonlawyers don’t have the proper training to perform legal estate planning for every situation they come across, and yours may or may not be “typical.”

However, you can exert your legal rights by drafting your own documents. Depending on what work ought to be done for you, and the understanding of the user, these can work. If you decide to go this route, be ready for a really steep learning curve and a huge time commitment before you rest easy. Depending on an individual’s situation, the stakes can be high and the results of error costly. If you decide to try, please take your time patiently researching until you begin to see the issues you will need to conquer. Also, don’t underrate the value of at least having a short consultation or two with an estate planning attorney, just to make sure you’re on track.