Estate Planning: Preparing your Finances for the Future

Along with the New Year come resolutions. Perhaps you’ve chosen one of the usual suspects: Going to the gym, losing weight, saving more money, or quitting some vice. But have you ever considered going beyond your standard resolution and developing a whole new plan? The New Year is the perfect time to reevaluate your goals and put a comprehensive estate plan in place. Even if you already have a plan in place, things have likely changed and the New Year is a great time to review your plan to ensure that it still meets your needs.

Sound complicated? Sound like too much work? It’s not. When you have an experienced professional to guide you, you’re more likely to get a new estate plan in place than you are to make good use of that new gym membership. Plus it puts your assets in a position to be managed with ease throughout your life while decreasing any burden on your loved ones after you are gone.

Although everyone has a plan unique to their needs, estate plans for the vast majority of people are relatively straightforward. At the Mlnarik Law Group, we recommend that a strong estate plan contain a minimum of the four essential estate planning documents: a Living Trust, a corresponding Will, Durable Power of Attorney, and Advanced Health Care Directive. When developed in concert and with the properly recognized legal language, these documents form an airtight protective shield around you and your assets.

Living Trust: A living trust is essentially like a storage unit for your assets. It allows you continual control over what you own while you are alive and designates the disposition of your assets upon your death without the cost, delay or publicity of court involvement or probate.

Will: The will as a part of the entire estate plan acts as a safety net for any assets acquired that had not yet been assigned to your trust before your death.

It essentially pours all of those assets into the trust to be distributed according to the terms of the trust.

Durable Power of Attorney: The durable power of attorney grants certain powers to act on your behalf to an agent or agents you trust. This power can take effect either immediately or once you have been declared to have lost the capacity to act yourself.

A variety of powers can be specifically granted or limited depending on your intentions. Some examples are allowing someone to pay your bills from your checking account, collect rents, and make other financial transactions on your behalf.

Advanced Health Care Directive: The health care directive gives a trusted agent the power to have access to your medical records and make medical decisions on your behalf when you do not have the capacity to make them.

You designate the terms in which you would like your health care to be administered and your agent acts in accordance with those terms.

Estate planning is most simply arranging your assets in accordance with your plan for the future while eliminating uncertainty for your heirs. The greatest benefits of a proper estate plan are avoiding the high costs of probate, minimizing family distress and ensuring that your intentions are honored. When done right, these four documents have you covered in the event of any contingency during your life and beyond. The attorneys at The Mlnarik Law Group have the experience to integrate the proper estate planning tools into the plan that is right for you. Don’t try to navigate this New Year without a plan.

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Courtesy The Mlnarik Law Group, Inc. Santa Cruz – 2901 Park Avenue C-2 Soquel, CA 95073 Tel: (831) 431-6430 Website: http://mlnariklaw.com