Is Your Last Will and Testament Legally Binding?

According to a recent survey, 60% of people in the US do not have a will or a plan to make one. 

Accidents happen and you do not want to leave your loved ones with nothing. But your will must be legally binding if it is to be enforced.

You are no lawyer, though, so it can be difficult to determine whether your will is enforceable in a court of law.

Is your last will and testament legally binding? Here are 4 questions to ask yourself.

Do You Have Witnesses?

Perhaps the most important part of making your will legally binding is having witnesses. In most states, you are required to have at least 2 witnesses, while some states require 3.

Additional witness requirements include:

  • Witnesses must be disinterested parties, meaning they are not named in your will
  • Witnesses must be 18 or older
  • The lawyer who drafts your will cannot be a witness

Some states, including Massachusetts and California, allow you to invite witnesses who are named in your will. Further, some states allow you to execute a legally binding will in the complete absence of witnesses. Make sure you know what your state requires.

Are You of Sound Mind?

You must be of sound mind when you sign your will for it be enforceable by law. Being of sound mind implies that you were not coerced into creating the document. It also means that you can understand what you are signing away upon your death–and who you’re signing it away to.

Keep in mind that this requirement does not rule out individuals who currently suffer or have suffered from mental illness. As long as witnesses can attest to your lucidity during the making and signing of your will, it will be legally binding.

Have You Signed?

For your last will and testament to be legally binding, it must contain the testator’s signature. Your signature must be in your own handwriting and appear at the very end of the document. Additionally, you should date the document as the day you added your signature.

If you are physically incapable of adding your signature to your will, no worries. You can have someone else sign your will in your place. But some courts will require notarization via witnesses to prove the alternate signatory acted in good faith and with your permission.

Are You 18 or Older? 

You must be 18 or older to file a legally binding will. However, emancipated minors may file a will. Emancipation usually applies to individuals of 16 or 17 years of age and implies that you are no longer dependent on your parents. 

Other exceptions to this rule may apply to:

  • Individuals younger than 18 who are married to a partner who is 18 or older
  • Individual younger than 18 who joined the military
  • Individuals younger than 18 who are of positive net worth and own considerable assets

None of these exceptions apply to you? Then you will have to wait until you turn 18 or file for emancipation from your parents to file a legally binding will. Unless you live in Georgia or Louisiana, where you can file a will if you are under the age of 18.

Where to Make Your Last Will and Testament 

Do not want to take the risk of a last will and testament that is not legally enforceable? You need an estate planning attorney who understands your needs.

That is where Lilac City Law comes in.

Do you live in the Spokane, WA State, or Northern Idaho and need to file a will? Request a consult with Lilac City Law today to get started. 

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How Did I Miss That? 5 Common Mistakes When Writing a Will

Despite the importance of estate planning, a majority of Americans seem to neglect it. In fact, 60% of American adults do not have a will.

Having more than enough to worry about already, many people do not want to add their mortality to their list of concerns. But writing a will can help you take good care of those you love, protect your assets, and prevent future disputes.

But just creating a will is not enough. You need to take the necessary measures to avoid common pitfalls that make your will legally sound.

Avoid these five common mistakes when writing a will.

Only Planning for the End of Life

A legal will should not just cover what will happen when you die. It should also articulate what should happen while you are still living.

To achieve this, you will need to create a living will as well as the last will and testament form.

The living will outlines your health care wishes while you are still alive. The last will and testament form gives your directives on estate inheritance after your death.

When drafting a living will remember to include advance directives.

Failing to Update Your Will

Making a will is not something you do once and forget about it. You need to update your will according to significant life changes.

Failure to do this can result in unintended inheritances and gifts, leaving your estate in a big mess.

Ignoring the Law

Each state has different legal requirements for creating a will. So before writing your will, familiarize yourself with your state’s stipulations for creating one.

Specifically, find out your state’s restrictions and requirements on matters such as; the number of witnesses required, selection criteria for witnesses, age, and notarization.

Failing to Name an Executor

An executor is a person responsible for ensuring that your will is followed to the letter. In your will, you should include the name of this individual/entity.

But before you select an executor, it is essential to get their permission. This is not something you would want to be a surprise.

Additionally, consider selecting a second executor. In case the first executor is unable to carry out their duties for whatsoever reason; the second executor will fill in.

Including Burial Wishes in the Will

Including your burial instructions in your will is not ideal, as wills are typically read several weeks after the funeral. As such, your burial instructions might be read too late, and this can leave your loved ones stressing about not observing your last wish.

To avoid this, write your burial instructions in a separate letter and tell your family where to find it.

Who to Trust When Writing a Will

Considering these potential pitfalls, writing a will can be a little bit tricky without a helping hand.

If you do not know how to write a will, Lilac City Law is here to help. We take our time to get to know you, your goals, and circumstances. This way, we can help you protect your assets better and secure the future of your loved ones.

Whether you want to create a will or maximize the effectiveness of the one you have already created, our experts will ensure that your last wishes are fully observed.

Contact us today to get started!

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Celebrate Your Military Family, Improve Your Military Will

Celebrate Your Military Family By Improving Your Military Will

There’s an old military adage that says, “No good plan survives engagement.” 

While this quote’s timelessness must lend credit to its applicability in battle, it transcends its martial roots and applies equally as well to law.  Especially Estate Law. 

Take for instance the idea of a Last Will and Testament.  A Will is probably the most well known and well-understood items in an estate plan.  The purpose of the Will is to make sure your assets go where you want them to go after you pass away.  It need not be too complicated, and in many cases, Wills have been as simple as notes scratched on a piece of paper from the deathbed of the person writing the Will.  <- We do not advise this, but if it is a bad idea and it works, is it indeed a bad idea?  

Today, and this month, we are celebrating the Month of the Military Kid.  As a law firm, this got us thinking, what can we do to celebrate?

 Share updates and resources, check.  Spread the good word, check.  Educate…  we can do that!  That is what this blog is all about.  Getting good information, usable information, from our brains and into a forum (this forum!) where readers can make informed decisions.  In that spirit, the purpose of this article is to answer for Veterans and those still serving, why their Military Will is not enough protection for their family, and show them how to fix this.  

Your Military Will Just Is Not Enough

It’s not your fault, and it is not a bad start.  But the hard fact is, your military Will is not enough protection for your family.  Here’s why.

As we mentioned above, a Will of any type is designed to designate who will get your assets when you pass.  The process begins with your death and then must go through a legal action known as probate.  Probate is the bane of estate planners for several reasons.  The top of these reasons being time, cost, messiness.

Probate is an Unnecessary Pain

Death is a hurry up and wait process when probate is factored in.  You are scrambling around trying to figure out last arrangements (if you haven’t set up an estate plan ahead of time), trying to figure out the finances of paying for burial or cremation, ceremonies, and getting family and friends together.  Then, you have all the assets of the deceased to figure out what to do with.

Houses, cars – are they owned?  Who has the right to sell them? Trinkets, storage items, family heirlooms, tv’s, jewelry, books, intellectual property, investments…the list is endless.  And it is going to take 6-9 months to figure out who has the right to even make decisions on these assets.  That is 6-9 months to work through probate, assuming the issue of ownership is uncontested!

Let’s set aside the time suck that is probate on Willed assets and work our way through costs.  Get ready to pay up to 10% of the assets of the estate just to transfer them to where they are supposed to go!

If you are keeping track that’s thousands of dollars and 6-9 months so far.  Again, IF the declarations in the Will are uncontestable.  Do you have an ex-wife that owns half your house but your adult kids and your current fiance’ are the ones named to inherit your assets in your military Will?  How’s that going to be settled?  Who is going to help you (or really them) to figure it out?  And how much is it going to cost?

Wills In the Military

Being honest, we are pointing out the drawbacks of Wills because there is another way for young families to prepare for the future. An approach that can release them & you from the turmoil of probate, the financial burden of an unnecessary legal process, and avoid the messiness of contested assets altogether.   So why does the military get service members set up with Wills in the first place?

For one, Wills are relatively straightforward and easy to set up en masse.  Did your command order you and 100 other people to set up your military Will through JAG?  Was it a pre-deployment Will or something set up for family day?  If so, it may be very limited in scope and entirely out of date if any one of a hundred or more things have happened since it was penned.

New kids, new property, new assets, new marriage situations, and more are all reasons to update a Will.  And in reality, updating a Will is not as simple as crossing off an outdated item and adding a new issue.  You are likely going to have to re-write the whole thing.

So, while military Wills get the job done, temporarily.  They do not grow with you and your needs, and if it has been a year or more since you established yours, you need another option.

Another Option – Let’s Talk Total Estate Planning

Wills are a means to an end and can be effective if you use them in the right way.  However they do come with drawbacks, and for a young military family, there are strong reasons to consider other paths for estate planning.  Especially, trusts, powers of attorney, and other options.

Recall from this discussion some of the drawbacks of Wills, and particularly military Wills.  

  • To transfer assets upon death requires probate, which can take 6-9 months;
  • Probate can cost up to 10% of the assets of the deceased;
  • Disputes over the Will can lead to painful situations which are only solved in probate court; and,
  • Wills only cover items and beneficiaries specifically.  Any change to your situation and family might change the whole dynamic of the military Will.  

A trust on the other hand

  • Can transfer assets almost immediately upon death, or even before passing if it is set up to do so. 
  • Will not require anyone to pay lawyers or a probate court.  Once the trust is set up the only cost is modifying it, if necessary.
  • Trustees (recipients of the trust) are decided between you and your estate lawyer when drafting and updating the trust.  It is very clear who your trustee(s) will be and under what conditions they assume control of the trust that your assets have been placed in. 
  • You can set up your trust to be disbursed to certain people in certain circumstances.  If you want your brother to receive part of your assets upon passing but not his spouse, you can make that a condition at any point.  
  • Lastly, a trust is private.  The process of going through probate opens up the details of your assets to the public eye.  Your beneficiaries could have unscrupulous suitors showing up at their door if you have a sizable estate to pass on.  A trust being disbursed to the trustee(s) in the manner you wanted is not handled in the public eye.  

Should You Scrap Your Military Will? 

You already know there are no absolutes in life.  And as we have discussed in this article, this sentiment is true in death too!

Should you scrap your military Will wholesale?  Maybe not.

At the very least, it is a fantastic jumping off point to discuss what else you should be considering or should have already considered.

The good news is that while you are still alive, it is not too late!

We Help Military Families Get Their Estate Plans In Order

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A Young Family’s Guide to a Rock Solid Estate Plan

If you are under 40 years old, the chances of you have thought about, or even pursuing estate planning is pretty small. However, something brought you here, and that means you are on your way to changing the way you look at planning your future!

The exploration of life planning that brought you here is the reason we started doing estate planning for families here at Lilac City Law in the first place. We believe that the best time for you to set up an incredible estate plan is when you are young; maybe even before you have children! So, where we begin this exploration in estate and life planning?

What step do you take first to get you from realizing an estate plan makes sense, protects you and your family, and is something you can do regardless of your asset profile?

Let’s look at the path to estate planning, step-by-step, and help you get prepared to engage with an estate planning attorney who has already established some basic fluency in this topic.

Estate Plan: The First Step, Get Started

Probably the best thing to know about starting an estate plan is the first step can be free. Set up your Protection Plan. This action alone knocks off several of the items we are going to be discussing later in this article. You can do set up your free protection plan here. Moreover, if something happens to you or your family while you are working on the rest of your plan, you will be set up with at least some security.

Get Started Here – Set Up Your Protection Plan

Estate Plan: The Second Step, Read Wear Clean Underwear

We cannot recommend enough grabbing a copy of Wear Clean Underwear. This book breaks down the reasons why you should be considering an estate plan in incredible detail. From the very beginning, you get to choose your adventure and see how common life scenarios play out depending on what estate planning decisions you make. If there is a list of books you should be giving new families, this book should be high on that list.

Estate Plan: The Third Step, Get Familiar with Estate Planning Items

If you completed step 1 above, awesome! Hopefully, you have step 2 bookmarked, now. And now for the third step, review the following fundamental elements of a comprehensive estate plan.

Estate Plan: Establish Your Last Will & Testament

When most people think about life planning, and how to set up their family after their passing, they think about establishing a will. A will is often more formally titled, a Last Will and Testament. But what is it? And, why do you want one, or need one?

A Last Will and Testament helps you to direct the transition of your assets to family members, friends, or whomever else after you pass away. It is almost always a formal legal document; however, there are cases where a court has upheld a will etched on to the paint of a tractor, and there are indeed other extreme examples of last-minute wills. For the sake of estate planning, we are sticking to a document you draft with your family and your estate planning attorney though! 🙂

The benefits of a Last Will and Testament are that they can cover items that a living trust may not cover. With a Trust, you are trying to transfer assets without having to go through the process of probate. Probate is costly and can be bypassed to a great extent with estate planning. However, you will not be able to continuously transfer all your assets to a Trust, no matter how diligent you are. A Last Will and Testament will help you here by covering things you have left out of your trust either by accident or on purpose.

In addition to unaddressed assets, a Trust cannot declare who will be the final guardian of your children in the event of an untimely passing. This contingency, in particular, is something your Last Will and Testament will spell out explicitly. Moreover, this scenario is also why you would benefit from working with an excellent estate planning attorney to set it up. Read the book we talked about in step two to see why, for your kids’ sake, this is something you want to work through in extensive detail.

Estate Plan: Advanced Health Care Directive

An advanced health care directive is a document in which you can set down your end-of-life preferences. You can also appoint someone in your directive to act on your behalf in making health care decisions for you, assuming you cannot make them for yourself.

Without a health care directive, your end of life care may be decided by doctors who do not know you and are unable to get your direct consent to treat (or not to treat).

An advanced directive is also often called a living will.

Estate Plan: Health & Financial Powers of Attorney

If it comes to pass that you are unable to manage your finances, or direct your self-care, who will take care of those things? If your spouse or partner is your #1 choice, that is a great plan. But, what if they are not able to help you out? Maybe they passed away, you split up, or they are simply out of town when something happens?

Health & Financial Powers of Attorney enable someone you trust to both acts on your behalf financially and in health care decisions for you. These Powers of Attorney (POA) also allow your designee to obtain information on your behalf. We wrote a great article on how this can work well, and how things can go sideways without these documents. It is worth a read, here.

Estate Plan: Kids Protection Plan

A Kids’ Protection Plan is not necessarily one static document. Instead, it is probably best looked at as the state of your estate and family planning. Are your kids set up to be taken care of if you pass before they are grown?

While you are exploring estate planning, this is something you want to get set up as soon as reasonably possible. Meaning, to start, we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Get a basic kids protection plan set up, here. The basic plan will give you and your family some level of protection as you work through the more granular aspects of estate planning.

Eventually, you will want to establish custody rights in your Last Will & Testament. Likewise, you will want to set up how your assets will transfer to your children if that is your desire. Also, you will want to set up many other things with other steps we talk about in this article.

So, step one for kids’ protection, keep them out of the custody of the state, get a guardianship set up here.  Step 2 ~ 100, talk to an estate planning attorney.

Estate Plan: Final Arrangements Plan

The particulars of your final arrangments are likely to be as unique as you are! However, the broad strokes things you might want to cover and leave in a place where your family can find them, include:

Your desire for what will happen to your body. Do you want your remains to be buried or cremated? Are you ok with embalming?

Do you have a preference on who will be handling your remains for burial or cremation? Have you worked with a specific mortuary in the past? Do you already have arrangments with them to take care of you?

Where will you be buried, interred, or placed? Is there a particular cemetery or location you have in mind? Are there actions you wish to be taken at that event?

If you are a Veteran and want to be interred at a National Cemetery, do you have a copy of your DD214 available and the number for the National Cemetery Administration ready for your family or caretakers to quickly make arrangments?

Have you already made provisions for a casket? Do you wish a certain type of casket or container be used? How do you want this to be paid, if you have not already paid for it? Do you want an open or closed casket funeral, if the choice is available?

Who will be your pallbearers? How do you want to be transported to your final resting place? Who will scatter your ashes, and in what way? Do you have funeral preferences?

Is there a marker you wish placed on your final resting place; a gravestone? Alternatively, a particular engraving to go on whatever marker you have set up?

Estate Plan: Business Documents

If you are a business owner, you might have given some thought to what you want to happen to your business if you are not around to operate it anymore. Even if you have not, it is probably a good idea to establish some contingencies. Exactly how the contingencies are setup will be predicated on many factors, including business structure, partners, debt, industry, products, and a million other things.

The best bet here is to talk to an estate planning attorney and work through a planning process. What do you want to happen; a transfer of ownership? A sale of the business (who will the proceeds go to)? We are scratching the surface on this issue, but the important thing to remember is that all your plans for your business can be worked out in advance; you just need to start the process today.

Estate Plan: Insurance Policies

Do you have life insurance setup? We are not writing this article to tell you whether to do so or not; we only want you to be able to help you transfer all your assets and investments where they are supposed to go. To do that, you will need to have a list of your insurance policies ready and the individual procedures and points of contact setup at those policies.

Don’t forget that credit cards and other items that might involve debt often have the option to provide life insurance too! You may have a policy set up that you did not even realize you had!

Regardless, get your plans laid out for your family to work through, get your beneficiaries lined up, and establish a plan for transferring the payout to whomever you wish to designate.

Estate Plan: Tax Materials

Owing taxes after your passing is maybe the ultimate injury to insult! However, if you own property your property will remain after your passing, and the taxes will too, sadly. Your beneficiaries will need to be instructed on how, when, and whom to pay taxes. They may also need a historical account of your taxes, for any number of reasons.

Estate Plan: Investments & Accounts

While you are getting your insurance and tax documents in order, you should be laying out any investments and bank accounts you might have as well. This list will be very helpful for your financial power of attorney, and/or your family when you pass.

It is important to think about this as more than your bank accounts too. Don’t forget 401k, stocks, bonds, bitcoins, IRA’s and other forms of investment.

Estate Plan: Trusts in Addition to Last Wills and Testaments

We covered Trusts, as they relate to Wills, earlier in this article. In many ways, Trusts and wills seek to fulfill the same ends but by very different means. Whereas a Will grants property and assets to a designee, it is often more open-ended. It is also far more restrictive in updating.  Here’s another article that compares the two as well.

If you need to amend a Will, you either have to go through a public court proceeding, or you have to scrap it all and start over. The thing is if you create a Will years or even decades before your passing and you intend it to speak to every aspect of your estate, it will be very open to interpretation. This point is where a probate court will come in, and on top of taking a hefty portion of your estate value in fees, the court will seek to interpret your will. Do you want someone who does not know you to understand the intentions that you put on paper 20 years ago? < This is where a Trust can help and work in tandem with your will.

You can use a trust to pass specific assets on to a beneficiary, bypassing probate entirely. Moreover, if you avoid probate through establishing a trust, you keep the details of your asset profile out of public records. This benefit in itself is self-evident. If you value the potential information on your children’s assets to be kept private from unscrupulous “advisors,” transferring those assets in a trust is one way to go. Can you tell we value privacy?

Lastly, a trust is easy to update, especially in comparison to a Last Will and Testament. A phone call to your estate attorney once a quarter and you will have a trust that is ready to be executed once the parameters you have decreed have been established. You can read more about how a trust is implemented in this article from our blog.

Estate Plan: Contact Sheets

Does your sister in law have your babysitter’s contact information? How about your parents, do they know how to get ahold of your spouse’s cousin who lives next door? It is imperative that you have contact sheets created for key points of contact, and that those contact sheets are readily available.

More to this point, you will want to have a procedure set up for what happens if the way someone learns something has happened to you is that you haven’t come home. Do they call the police first? Do they call your neighbor who knows your children’s guardianship plan and has access to it?

Again, read this book – free with this offer, to see why this is so very important. Then contact an estate planning attorney to get the ball rolling on this.

Estate Plan: Passwords & Account Information

How secure is your Facebook account? Does anyone else have your password? Your spouse, your kids? You would probably know because if they did, they would no-doubt be posting practical jokes all the time from your account, right?

Kidding aside, it makes a lot of sense why you wouldn’t share your social media, email, or other account passwords with someone else. Why would you even have a password if you started sharing it? Plus, passwords now have to change often anyway, so keeping a physical and updated copy can be a challenge.

The solution here might depend on your preferences. Whether it is a physical sheet of paper you keep in a safe place, or an Application you install on your smartphone, it is a good idea to have some way for those you care about to be able to access your important accounts in an emergency, or after you pass.

Estate Plan: Emergency Cash

Have you ever thought of storing some cash in your mattress? Ok, well maybe somewhere a bit more secure… The point being, you do not know what will be the emergency that makes your estate plan necessary. In actuality, there may be several emergencies throughout your life that part of your estate plan becomes necessary to address.

Part of what makes a rock solid estate plan so comprehensive is that it addresses as best as possible all those nebulous potentialities. The estate plan is specific where it needs to be, but flexible enough to handle the unknowable unknowns. In regards to flexibility, cash is king.

Cash is immeasurably useful; it is easy to transfer (hand it over). It is accepted universally. It can be easily secured. Also, you do not need anyone’s help to build a small but capable emergency stash, just in case you need it someday. Make sure cash is part of your emergency estate planning, and make sure it is readily available.

Estate Plan: A Photographic Itemizations of Assets

This idea crosses over into good insurance practice too. You can describe your assets in great detail, but as it has been said, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Keep a photo diary or photo catalog of your assets. It may come to pass that your desire to transfer certain assets might not be as descriptive as necessary if there is some contention. If however, you include a picture of that property, as well as a description of it, you leave a whole lot less up for doubt.

Plus, as we said a second ago, keeping photos of your assets is helpful for insurance purposes too. So, it just is a good, and cheap, safety measure to incorporate into your regular estate planning.

Estate Plan: Photos & Recording of Yourself!

While you are thinking about pictures, you may want to put some physical pictures away in a safe too. Or at the least, start uploading them to the cloud via Dropbox. Another option is using several USB sticks.

Why would you want to do this? For your family, your kids in particular. This idea depends on how much you wish to leave behind for your family to know you by. Many families create these digital memories and never need them. They send them with their kids when they leave home or watch them with them at their milestone birthdays; which is also pretty awesome! However, some families will have these become part of their record to their children of who they were when they were alive.

In the end, photos and recordings of yourself are not necessary for your estate plan. But, they are a touching gesture for your family, should you pass.

Estate Plan: Store Your Estate Plan in Different Places

Lastly, in our rundown of estate plan musts, store your plan in several places. Or at the very least, store it in one very secure place. This plan is going to be important to your family at some point. If it is when you have passed, you will not be able to tell them where or how to access it, if you moved it.

In fact, you might have lost a physical copy of your plan due to an accident, a fire, moving, or something else. It happens! Keep the details of your plan safe.

Estate Plan: The Most Important Last Piece

One option for this is to work with an estate planning attorney. Once they find out that your plan is necessary, they will immediately become part of the team to triage your needs and the needs of your family. Do you have a guardianship plan, so your kids do not end up wards of the state? If so, your estate planning attorney will know where it is, how it works, the limits and rights it grants, and how to execute it immediately.

On top of everything else we discussed in this article, having a trusted advisor in the form of an estate planning attorney is the most important “must have” in this entire article.

You can contact Lilac City Law, here.  Or fill out the form below.   Find out why we are rated 5/5 stars on Google!

4 Must-Have Estate Planning Documents for Every Young Adult

4 Must-Have Estate Planning Documents for Every Young Adult

 

You are young and you are ready to change the world!  But as you charge into the world, there’s something you maybe were never taught…

The importance of taking steps to secure your current and future assets and estate through an appropriate estate plan.   

 

Last Will and Testament

A fully fleshed out estate plan consists of guardianship plans, and beneficiary documentation, and tons of other things.  But the first thing people usually think about is drafting a last Will and Testament.

In brief, a Will describes your wishes in regards to assets and estate after you pass. This includes decisions such as who gets to inherit what (in regards to your estate), who will manage your wealth if it’s necessary,   and even who should be named as the guardian of your children (if required).  There are a number of other documents and ways to do this, but as we said before, the last Will and Testament is often the first thing people think about and set up during their exploration of estate planning.

One of the biggest drawbacks to simply relying on a Will is that to enforce the details in the Will requires a court process known as probate.  Wherein a judge will determine how to interpret the desires of the will, in regards to metering out your estate.  Plus, probate is costly and time-consuming.  However, going through probate to disburse your estate according to your wishes is infinitely better than having a judge make an educated guess (their own opinion) on how to distribute your estate and assets.  Which is what they’ll do, without an up to date Will.

Hopefully, you have a long time to think about how your will needs to be worded and updated.  However, choosing not to establish one in the first place, is risky, and could ultimately be very costly for your family and heirs.  You can get ahead on this, by talking to an estate planning attorney today.

 

Living Will

Health and wealth are two very important aspects of estate planning.  And in planning for your future and potential catastrophic personal events, safeguarding them should never be overlooked.

A living will defines your intent and desires for potential end-of-life care.  Do you want to be on life support?  If so, how long?  How much of your estate and assets should go to support your end of life care?

You might utilize your living will to state advanced directives too.  For instance, you might state that in certain cases, pain killers should be used, but CPR or other extreme measures should not be attempted to sustain your life.

Living wills often work in conjunction with Healthcare Power of Attorney (Medical Power of Attorney), or Durable Power of Attorney.  You should familiarize yourself with these documents if you’re going to set up a Living Will.  Still, if you’re getting the bases covered, you should work with an Estate Planning attorney to set up your Living Will.

 

Financial Power of Attorney

A financial power of attorney designates someone to take charge of your financial assets and affairs in your absence or in case you’re incapacitated.  This may be part of a larger set of Powers of Attorney or may be specifically designated to only cover financial issues of your choosing.  The responsibilities of your financial POA might include taking care of and protecting your assets, distributing your assets,  or even something as straight forward as dealing with your bills.

In addition to working with a great Estate Planning attorney to set up your Financial Power of Attorney, you may also want to engage the services of a financial planner.  Working with a financial planner that understands estate planning will enable you to have a better understanding of the types of financial issues you FPOA designee would have to deal with.

Lilac City Law recommends a financial planner from our preferred partners list. 

 

Living Trust

Trusts play a pivotal role in planning for the future of your estate and how it will be taken care of when you pass or become unable to manage it. One of the greatest advantages of a living trust is avoiding probate which is the court process and associated fees that we described in the section above (Last Will & Testament).  One huge bonus of a living trust is that unlike a Will, it is a whole lot easier for you to update it throughout your lifetime. So, easier to update, protects your wealth from disappearing into taxes and probate, and you can set it up relatively easily with the help of a great Estate Planning Attorney.  It’s a win-win-win, for someone new to estate planning.  Here’s more information on living trusts.

 

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