How much does estate planning cost?

Transcript: Special needs children need extra special care. In order for them to thrive and to have an enjoyable happy productive life. They need both the resources of the family and the resources of the government. Unfortunately without good planning we usually lose one if not both of those sources of support. If families don’t do the correct planning, they can inadvertently throw their child off government programs like medicade or social security disability that the child desperately needs. Or they may leave the child on medicade or social security disability but not have the benefits of a little extra that the family could provide that would make their life richer, fuller, and more meaningful. I think that’s a tragedy.

Transcript: An estate plan should be reviewed any time there is a major change in your life. A change like a birth of a child or a grandchild, a death, when one of your children or grandchildren gets married, when somebody gets divorced, when you retire, when you go back to work. Most people tend to put off reviewing their plans. In fact we usually see plans that are about 20 years old. They made a will back when their children were small and they were headed on a trip. Now they are approaching retirement, they look back, oh my gosh that is totally out of date. I hope people don’t wait that long.

Transcript: You should make a living trust if you want to stay in control of your affairs for the rest of your life. Even if you become disabled or incompetent, through a trust, somebody you trust following your instructions can be in charge of your affairs. Secondly you should make a living trust if you want to avoid probate. The living trust is the most elegant, comprehensive tool we have to make sure that your business doesn’t end up in the court system. And third, you should use a living trust if you need to take care of grandchildren, special needs child, or anyone else who needs particular attention.

Transcript: Absolutely yes, the living trust we create are revocable. Which means you can change them any time you want. You can move assets in and out of the trust and when you become incapacitated yourself your successor trustee is required by law to follow your instructions to use your assets to take care of you. So yes, if you are a control freak, you definitely want to have a living trust.

Transcript: Typically life insurance proceeds or retirement benefits don’t need to go through probate, assuming that the beneficiary designations have been set up properly, but there are other concerns that should be also considered. For example, what are the tax consequences of those assets? Are they going to go to the right people at the right age with the right protections? Those are often much bigger concerns than whether those assets go through probate.

Transcript: It’s it done properly, a living trust avoids probate because all of your assets are owned by the trust instead of in your name individually. The reason we have probate is because we die and an asset is still in our name, and we have to put it into the name of a living beneficiary. The living trust avoids all of that because we do that in advance and then when we pass away, the trust can then distribute the asset to whoever we want to have it.

Transcript: If you have minor children, one of the most important reasons for having a will is to specify guardians. Guardians are the people who will actually raise your kids. You want to think about who has the same values, who has the same perspective on education, on religion, on medical care, all of those core things that make you and your family who you are. The only way to give direction to the court if you pass away is in a will. So if you do a will for no other reason, specify who will raise your kids. That’s important.

Transcript: Technically, an individual who’s not an attorney can handle a summary administration, but we’ve had many cases where clients come to us who’ve tried that and said, “Hey, I’m gonna let you take over this.” But if it’s a regular administration, then yes, you do need an attorney because many documents have to be filed with the court, many motions have to be made, many orders have to be prepared. It’s not cookie cutter when we get into a typical administration.