As I began writing about in last week’s post, there are a number of important factors to consider when deciding who to name as trustees, powers of attorney, health care surrogates, and executors while working on your estate plan. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind: 4.…
Articles Posted in Estate Planning
Estate Planning: 5 Tips to Pick Trustees, Executors, and POAs (Part 1)
When implementing estate planning documents, one of the biggest challenges people often run into is the choice of who to name as their trustees, powers of attorney, health care surrogates, and executors. Here are some tips for deciding who to appoint: 1. Give preference to those who have the most…
Why You Should Consider Multiple Successor Trustees
People with revocable living trusts often name a family member (spouse, oldest child, etc.) as their successor trustee. The successor trustee is who takes over the administrative duties for the trust in the event you become incapacitated or die. However, naming only one successor is probably not enough. It is…
What to Do If You Want to Leave Your Children Unequal Inheritances
Although parents typically want to leave equal shares of their estate for their children, there are cases where equal isn’t fair. It’s important to carefully prepare if you want to provide more or less for one child in your estate plan. There may be a number of reasons a parent…
Estate Planning Pitfall: You Haven’t Coordinated Your Estate Plan With Your Spouse
It can be enough of a challenge to do estate planning for yourself, but it might be even more complicated when you have a spouse. You and your spouse may have been able to reach agreements on major life decisions such as raising children and where to live, but that…
You Can Just Say No: Declining to Act as an Agent Under a Power of Attorney
It’s a huge responsibility to act as an agent under a power of attorney, and it isn’t something everyone is able or willing to do. If someone names you as an agent in their power of attorney document, you can resign or refuse the position. The main types of power…
Estate Planning Checklist: Something to Consider Before Sending your Child off to College
As you are preparing to bring your student to college, there’s some estate planning you will want to include as part of this preparation. Your child becomes a legal adult once they turn 18, and in most circumstances, you are no longer authorized to obtain information regarding their medical care…
How do you speak to loved ones about your estate plan?
People usually find it stressful to talk to family members about decisions they are making for their estate plan, and this can lead a lot of people to avoid having these conversations. Sometimes, a parent’s adult children won’t talk to their parents about this topic because they don’t want to…
Please don’t write on your estate planning documents
It’s rare for an estate plan to be put together and never be changed. Wills and trusts usually need to be changed over time as your circumstances, states of residence, and desired outcomes shift. It is important to know how you can properly change your will or trust so that…
When to Consider a Change in your Estate Planning Documents
It is important not only to have estate planning documents in place, but also to keep these documents up-to-date as your life changes. The rule of thumb is to review these documents every five years to see if any revisions need to be made. If changes have occurred in your…