Client Services

Comprehensive Estate Planning

The 3 Estate Plans | Getting Started

Estate planning is for everyone, regardless of the size of your estate, what you own, or what your family circumstance may be. It is “life-planning,” and does not just concern what happens to your assets when you pass away. It is motivated out of love for family, friends, and personal causes.

Thoughtful estate planning or wealth transfer planning now allows you to:

• maintain control over your person and affairs while you are alive and well, and have a contingency plan if you become mentally disabled,
• provide security to loved ones, including future generations, and those who are dependent upon you,
• naming guardians for minor children and providing the guardians the instructions and resources for their care
• transfer wealth to loved ones with an much or as little control as they may need and as you desire, and in ways which protect their inheritance from creditors and predators,
• protect and preserve your assets from the government and from lawsuits, and maintain your privacy as much as possible,
• eliminate or reduce federal estate and gift taxes,
• reduce income and capital gain taxes,
• maintain the value of family businesses,
• create a legacy by passing values and responsibilities to family members,
• achieve your charitable goals,
• coordinate your retirement planning, business planning, insurance and financial planning with your estate plan,
• save every possible administrative expense, transfer cost, tax dollar, attorney fee and court cost you can.

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The 3 Estate Plans

Even if you have not implemented a formal estate plan, every person already has an estate plan – actually three estate plans: namely,

1) the plan you think you have,
2) the plan you actually have, and
3) the plan you should have.

The Plan You Think You Have

If you have taken the important steps to plan your estate you are to be congratulated. Your plan may include:

• Durable Power of Attorney for Financial Matters, including the necessary Certificates and Affidavits
• Medical Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Decision-Making
• Living Will, or Directive to Physician and Family
• Anatomical gift forms
• Appointment of Agent to Control the Disposition of Your Remains
• Burial instructions
• Pre-Need Declaration of Guardian for you
• Designation of Guardian for minor children
• Memorandum to Distribute Tangible Personal Property
• Last Will and Testament
• Living or Revocable Trust
  • Your Will or Trust may include:
    • Tax planning options
    • Marital trust
    • Family trust
    • Generation Skipping Transfer Tax Trust
    • Trusts for children and grandchildren
• Trust for pets
• Revocable management trust
• Supplemental Needs Trust, Section 142 Trust, Section 867 Management Trust, Qualified Income or “Miller” Trust, Investment Trust, S-Corporation Trust
• Irrevocable trusts, such as an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust, and other grantor trusts, such as a Qualified Personal Residence Trust
• Transfer documents necessary to re-title assets in the name of your trust
• Affidavit or Certificate of Trust
• Wealth Replacement Trusts
• Charitable trusts
• Private family foundation, charitable foundation and testamentary foundation
• Off-shore trusts
• Limited liability companies
• Family limited partnership
• Nominee partnerships
• Business buy-sell agreements
• Marital agreements
• Business continuation plan
• Conservation easements
• Deferred compensation plans, employee stock ownership plans

If any of these documents are part of your existing plan, are they up-to-date? Have your circumstances changed? Are the various documents coordinated and consistent with each other? Do you hold title to your property in ways that are consistent with your plan and your goals? Are the beneficiary designations on your insurance policies, checking accounts, investment accounts and other assets coordinated with your estate plan?

Here are two lists to help you: Documents in a Living Trust Estate Plan and Documents in a Will Centered Estate Plan.

The Plan You Actually Have

If you have taken the necessary steps to plan your estate you should review your plan every few years, especially if you have experienced a change of circumstance, including the birth of child, the death of a loved one, your children reaching adulthood, a divorce, a change of residence from one state to another, retirement, or a major financial change. Recent changes in state or federal laws may frustrate the success of your plan, or create new planning opportunities that will be lost to you. You may think your current estate plan allows for these changes. But the plan you think you have may be woefully out-of-date and may not accomplish your goals.

Proper estate planning must coordinate your strategies, documents and your assets with your goals. If you are using a will to transfer assets at death but your property is owned as joint tenants with right of survivorship, and other assets are governed by beneficiary designations then even a well drafted will won’t control the property you intend. How you own your property governs what happens to it in the event of mental disability or death. The ownership of your assets must be considered as part of your planning process. If your plan is not comprehensive, the plan you actually have may not work as you intend.

The “No Plan” Plan

The horror stories in the news about the probate process or end-of-life decision-making usually involve people who did not plan their affairs. These people have the “No Plan” estate plan. If you become disabled and cannot manage your affairs, how do you want to be cared for, and who is to make the many difficult decisions for you? At death, who is going to pay your debts? What is going to happen to all your property? Who is going to care for your loved ones and those who are dependent upon you? If you do not take responsibility for yourself, your loved ones and your assets then the State and Federal governments step in to answer these questions for you.

If you do not plan your estate, the government has a ready-made, expensive, one-size-fits-all estate plan prepared for you which controls you and your property in the event you become mentally disabled or at death. The government plan includes the federal and state laws and court cases regarding:

• conservatorships and guardianships if you or a loved one becomes incapacitated,
• statutes, case law and court proceedings governing end-of-life decision-making if you have not made your wishes known,
• the state intestacy statute determines who receives your assets at death, and if there is no one to receive it, the State takes title, and
• tax laws, including inheritance and estate taxes, that determine how much of your assets will be confiscated by the government.

The “No Plan” estate plan is the most expensive plan for you and your loved ones, and usually produces the most disastrous results.

The Plan You Should Have

An estate plan is not just a collection of fill-in-the-blank forms. The most effective estate plan is built upon effective communication between you and your advisors. Estate planning starts with a thorough discussion of you and your family circumstance to determine what is important to you to accomplish. Your attorney’s first responsibility is to listen to you. Your job as our client is to educate us about your circumstances and your goals. Our job as your estate planning attorney is to educate you about the many strategies and techniques that fit your circumstances and accomplish your goals with as much simplicity or intricacy as you prefer. We then work to create the most practical solutions and embody these in a comprehensive plan. Every estate plan should be unique because every client is unique.

Estate planning includes financial planning. Certain assets, such as a ranch or farm, or a small business, may require special planning strategies, including innovative ways to reduce your property tax burdens. Income and estate tax planning strategies must be integrated. Retirement, insurance and financial security issues must be understood and incorporated into the process. Sometimes Medicaid issues must also be addressed in your plan, especially if you are planning for a disabled person. The estate planning process can be a tremendous opportunity to review your financial picture, restructure your assets, and coordinate all the parts of your plan to accomplish your goals.

A comprehensive estate plan is prepared by a team of advisors. Besides the attorney, your team may include your accountant, financial planner, stock broker, insurance agent, business managers, or other professionals. The team you select works together to accomplish your goals. The strategies and documents are specifically prepared to meet your needs. If your estate plan is to truly serve you and last as long as possible, your plan shouldn’t be based on boiler-plate documents or narrow thinking. Your team of trusted advisors will be a resource to you for many years to come.

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Getting Started

Gather Your Information.
Some clients appreciate the opportunity to gather together and organize all their personal and financial information at the start of the planning process. Other clients simply want to get their questions answered and need time to think. Some clients know exactly what they want to do and just need a little help to implement their plan. In most cases you can save time and money in the preparation of your estate plan by doing three things:

1. Prepare a list of people, including their contact information, whom you are planning for, such as loved ones, friends and charities, and a list of other people you may wish to be involved in your estate plan, such as people you want to name as guardians for your children, or trustees of your trust, or executors of your will, and your medical doctors and all financial advisors.

2. Prepare a simple financial statement listing all your property together with your estimate of its value, including real estate, investments, insurance, personal property, retirement plans, etc.

3. Begin considering basic questions, such as: How will you and your property be cared for if you become mentally disabled? How do you eventually want your property distributed? What goals are you trying to accomplish – providing for a spouse and children, avoiding taxes, maintaining control of your affairs, avoiding potential conflicts?

Please use the attachedEstate Planning Worksheets to help you organize your information prior to our meeting.

No Obligation Initial Consultation and Cost Estimate.
We offer you the opportunity to meet with us for an initial one hour consultation at no obligation to see how we can best assist you. We will review your family circumstances, your assets and goals, explain any issues we see, and make initial recommendations regarding which strategies and techniques meet your unique needs.

Depending upon the nature and extent of the planning you require to accomplish your goals, we should be able to give you an estimate of our legal fees at the conclusion of your initial visit. If you need more sophisticated estate planning, we usually schedule an additional meeting to complete the design of your plan and determine the cost. We usually give you a fixed-fee quote for our services. However, some specialized techniques may require us to consult with your other advisors and estimate our fee based upon our hourly rates and other factors. If after the initial consultation you do not hire our firm you will not be billed. If you decide to hire us, the cost of any conferences is included in the fee.

The thought of wrestling with all the issues involved in planning your estate can sometime seem daunting. However, our experience is that our clients universally feel peace of mind as a result of engaging with us in the planning process.

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