Has a family member or close friend asked you to serve as their executor, trustee or power of attorney? If you accepted the responsibility, do you know what this entails? Have you been given a copy of the documents you were named under? Do you know when you would begin serving in these roles? These are all important questions to ask or consider.
When do you need your estate plan to ‘go to work’ for you? While you may think the right answer is ‘after I die,’ the actual answer is ‘if I lose the ability to manage my own affairs.’
Do you expect your parents to leave you a financial legacy? Nearly half of working-age Americans assume that they will receive an inheritance that will support them later in life, according to a survey by financial services company HSBC. Perhaps the bigger question, though, is how to even approach this topic with your parents.
Many people focus on only protecting their estate from probate. However, in the big picture, probate is the least of their worries.
Most people wish to have more control over who and how their assets are managed than what the state laws provide, and so they draft documents that can override the Laws of Intestacy, when those laws do not match their objectives.
The possibility that a power of attorney might be rejected may be one reason not to simply pull a form off the internet and hope it will be accepted.
As you age, it is important to have your affairs in order to ensure peace of mind for you and your family. Several documents need to be in place to help your family know and carry out your wishes.
Social Security benefits are one of the items that fall through the cracks in many estate plans.
Without an estate plan in place, clients will be reliant on state laws and probate courts to appoint individuals who will be responsible for financial affairs and health-care decisions, in the case of illness and ultimately the transfer of assets upon death.
Without a proper elder law estate plan, the children’s responsibilities are even more exhausting, stressful and sad.
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