You’ve worked hard and have been careful with your money so you want to make sure it goes to the people YOU choose.

Carefully Structure Your Plan

It is important that you carefully evaluate your property and determine the best way to pass it to your loved ones.  An attorney specializing in estate planning is in the best position to help you legally structure your plan to avoid common legal pitfalls and to ensure maximum tax savings.  For example, before she came to see me, a client added her son to the deed of her home.   She didn’t realize it but her son could potentially pay thousands more in taxes than necessary if she would have structured the transfer to him differently.   We restructured the transaction to ensure maximum tax benefits.

In many cases you can arrange your legal plan to protect your property from a number of situations, such as: individuals or companies to whom your beneficiaries may owe money, from your beneficiaries’ divorcing spouses, certain taxes, and being spent on addictive behaviors.  If you have a loved one who is eligible (or may become eligible) for government assistance – such as a child with special needs — careful planning is required to ensure your money is not lost to the government.  Advanced planning also allows you to structure charitable gifts to ensure maximum tax benefits.

An experienced estate planning attorney can advise you on the best structure to accomplish your goals.

Properly Execute Legal Documents

Once you have determined the best structure to transfer your property, an attorney can document your plan and make sure it is legally executed.  This is important because each state has different rules as to what makes a will, trust, power of attorney and medical directive valid.  For example, a couple used on online will service to prepare a will.  They printed out the will and then took it to a local bank to get it notarized.  One of them subsequently died.  The wife who survived was shocked to find out that her husband’s will had not been properly executed because it required two people to witness it to be valid. An attorney can ensure this doesn’t happen.  Make sure the attorney is located in your state and has experience in estate planning rather than some other area of the law.