You’re Not Getting Any Younger: Why You Shouldn’t Put Off Planning Your Estate

When you are planning your finances, you need to consider planning your estate. Plus, you should consider how easy it is to create the best financial plan going forward when you have kids or when you have many things to pass down when you die. Use these tips to create an estate plan for anyone regardless of their age or financial status.

Hire A Lawyer

You should contact estate planning attorney JA Smith when it is time to plan your estate. A lawyer can write all the documents for you, and they will explain how you should organize your estate. Your lawyer can write the will quickly, and they can create an estate plan that includes many different elements. If you try to do all this work on your own, you may not complete the process for several months.

Decide How You Will Divide Property

You need to decide how you will divide your property. If you do not have a will, everything is left up to the state. Plus, this might create an inequity when the assets are divided. There are people you might want to exclude, or you might have made promises to people who thought that they would inherit something from you. Work with your lawyer to determine how your property will be split up when you pass on, and the lawyer will write a document that makes everything very clear.

Are You Creating Trusts?

You might create trusts for your children or grandchildren. When that is the case, you need to determine how much money every child will get. You must put that money in a sheltered account that is protected by your lawyer. Plus, the lawyer will use personal information about the child to release that money in the future. If you pass away, your lawyer can distribute the funds when the time comes. However, you should also ask your lawyer to change the trusts the moment you want to add money, remove money, or change the recipient’s information.

Are You Passing On A Business?

You need to create a succession plan for your business that allows the correct person to take over. When you write the succession plan, you may need to exclude certain people. This is very important because you want to ensure that your business is carried on by your family or a close friend that you have made promises to.

You Need To Exclude People

You may need to exclude people from your will when you are writing the estate plan document. If you do not name certain people in the will, they could challenge the will in court. You might prefer to write a small section for each person who is excluded, and you can give them a dollar so that they have received something. You are preventing challenges to your will, and you can include clauses that disallow any inheritance if people challenge the will in court.

Conclusion

You should work with an attorney when it is time to write your will. You should not write the will by yourself, and you need to discuss how the will helps with trusts and business succession. You may need to exclude people from the will, and your lawyer will help you avoid problems with legal challenges by writing the document properly.

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