Why Start Your Estate Planning?
Did you know, everyone has an estate plan whether they designed it or not? Yep! You read that right. If you were to pass away or become incapacitated today, the government would allocate everything you own, or put people in control of your assets, by whatever statutes and laws are in place in your state. I won’t get into too many details in this post because it is meant to be brief, but most importantly, because every single person has unique circumstances. Therefore, what you read in this post may or may not apply to your situation.
With that in mind, going back to my point above, if you were to have no Will or Trust in place and you passed away suddenly, none of your close friends or family may have much say in what would happen to your assets. This can be problematic for many reasons, one of them being the complex relationships we have. For instance, how many married couples do you know that have been unofficially separated for years? In some states like NY, that spouse can still be entitled to 50% of everything the deceased spouse owned! Remember, marriage is a contractual obligation that stays with you literally until death do you part. In the situation above, the deceased spouse may not have wanted 50% of her estate to go to her ex, instead she may have wanted to split everything amongst her three kids for example. In this case, the kids would now have to split 50%, three ways!
This is one example of many ways in which the complex and unique relationships we have can impact or determine the legacy we leave behind. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be able to properly plan and design your plan to put your loved ones in the best position possible when you’re no longer here to handle your affairs.
Common Myths
You don’t have much money worth saving or giving.
WRONG! if your money OR assets (car, house, expensive articles of clothing or jewelry, a trademark, an LLC, etc.,) will be disbursed anyways, why not make sure it goes to the ones you love and not your long lost brother, dad, or uncle? You would be surprised how far down the family tree you can go when trying to probate an estate.
You think you’re immortal
Ok sorry for the crude humor but in this line of work we deal with death occasionally. The thing is, people die unexpectedly every day. We do not know when our time here on earth is up and thus we should prepare as soon as feasible. Estate Planning is not something you put off until after retirement (bonus tip: if you need medicaid/medicare later in life, that can potentially affect your estate if you wait to plan until then).
“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today! ”
3. You think it will be difficult to create your estate plan
I have had a wide range of clients with differing needs and preferences. I’ve had the client who wants to distribute and give 100% of what they own to one person (bonus tip: you always need an alternative person or organization), and I’ve also had a client who wanted to distribute his estate to about 20 people, giving some of them 2.5% each.
Creating your own estate plan is as “difficult” as you make it. However, I can assure you that the peace of mind that comes along with having your affairs in order will make this process worth it in the end. I will also say it’s not that it is difficult, it can just be tedious.
Quick Estate Planning document Checklist
I want to leave you with a simple checklist that will cover the basic information you need before meeting with your Estate Planning attorney to make the most use of your time together:
Bring any old Trust or Will documents you already have in place;
Bring names and contact information for anyone you are listing as a beneficiary, executor, and/or trustee;
Think about what your goals and objectives are for your legacy plan;
Compile a list of any and all assets and bank accounts that you want to include in your estate documents; and
GO RELAXED! you can rest assured your affairs will get in order and you won’t be like those people who didn’t plan and left their families to fight over the estate. (sorry, it happens)
I wanted to introduce the topic of Estate Planning because a lot of people are not thinking about it and they should be.
Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below.
DISCLAIMER: Although I am an attorney, this post is for educational purposes only. I am not advising you on your own personal affairs and no attorney-client relationship is created.
With LOVE,
KayaDejure