Estate planning is simply the process of getting legal documents in place so that your chosen individuals are appointed to take care of you, your children, your assets, and your finances in the event of your death or incapacity. The process also involves naming the people you want to inherit your assets when you are gone. An “estate plan” is simply a bundle of all the documents needed to accomplish these objectives.

If you don’t currently have a will or trust, you may think you don’t have an estate plan….but you do. It’s just that the state of Texas has written it for you! All states have a default plan for your family and assets in the event of your incapacity or death. That’s the plan you have now. Estate planning is “opting out” of the default plan and putting your own wishes in place.

You have two options with your estate planning: a will-based plan, or a living trust-based plan. The vast majority of my clients choose a living trust. A living trust is a document where you appoint a chosen individual to manage your assets should you become incapacitated and distribute them to your family at your death. It is almost always preferable to a will because it is designed to avoid the time, expense, and publicity of probate, which a will cannot avoid.

It comes as a surprise to many of my clients that wills do not avoid probate court…they guarantee it!

I go over the difference between a will and a living trust in depth during the Peace of Mind Strategy Session. The most common question I get at the end of this session is, “Why would anybody ever do a will?!”

Ultimately, however, the decision is yours.

Probate is the court-supervised process of administering your estate upon your death. If you die without a will, your estate must go through probate before all your money can be distributed to your heirs. And if you die WITH a will…your estate still has to go through probate! The only way to avoid probate is with a revocable living trust.

What’s so bad about probate? Even a simple probate can take years to complete and eats up as much as 5-7% of the estate assets in the meantime. It’s also a public proceeding that makes your will available to anybody who wants to look at it.

Although a will is subject to the probate process, a living trust is designed to bypass it completely.

Unfortunately, even a simple will is still subject to the expense and delays of probate. It’s not the complexity of the document itself that cause the time and expense, it’s the probate process itself. For this reason, most of my clients choose to create a living trust instead of a will, which is designed for simplicity and to avoid the probate process completely.

However, as part of an overall, comprehensive estate plan, a special “pour-over” will is used to appoint guardians for any minor children alive at your death.

No. This is the biggest myth out there. Estate planning is in no way related to how much money you have, whether you are a married, or whether or not you are a parent.

Estate planning in putting legal documents in place that ensure your assets will go to the people you want, the way you want, when you are gone. It’s about making this as easy as possible on your loved ones during an otherwise difficult time. And we all care about that, no matter how much (or little) money we have.

It’s also about appointing people to manage your property and make health care decisions for you if you are incapacitated, something that matters to all of us regardless of wealth status.

A health care proxy allows you to appoint someone you trust to manage your medical decisions should you be unable to do so. A living will (not to be confused with a living trust or last will and testament) allows you to make certain medical decisions regarding end-of-life decisions, ahead of time.

We include a health care proxy and living will for both spouses in every estate plan we create.

Yes! In some ways, you need estate planning MORE than married folks. Many non-married individuals want to leave their money to charities and friends, not their closest living relative. Unfortunately, if you die without getting this in writing, your estate could end up in the hands of that distant cousin you’ve met twice. And it’s important for everyone to have a Health Care Proxy and Financial Power of Attorney.

Great question! I have yet to meet a parent who actually wants their kids to inherit a big lump sum on their 18th birthday (which is the age you are legally entitled to inherit). Yet that is exactly what will happen if you don’t get an estate plan saying otherwise. The good news is that with a trust, you can choose a later age for your kids to inherit – say 25, or 30. You have lots of options. We’ll discuss them at your Peace of Mind Strategy Session.

You nominate legal guardians in a Will, or a Pour-Over Will that goes along with your Revocable Living Trust. If you pass away without nominating guardians, a judge will make the decision for you. You also run the risk that family members will fight over who gets custody because you didn’t make your preference clear.

Our firm goes the extra mile and helps you nominate short-term guardians to care for your children in the interim while the long-term guardians are appointed. And did you know you can “confidentially exclude” people you would never want raising your children no matter what? We can help with that!