If you’re a parent of a minor child, it is imperative that you do estate planning. And estate planning when you have minor children is usually focused on who will take care of the children if something were to happen to you. So if you pass away unexpectedly, you would want to have guardians appointed so that they can step in and raise your children until your children become adults.

The other aspect of estate planning if you are a parent with minor children, has to do with incapacity planning. You’ll want to make sure that you have a plan in place where you appoint someone to make financial and healthcare decisions for you if you become incapacitated.

So if you are a parent of a minor child, I encourage you to click the link or contact us through our website and I would love to sit down with you and talk about your planning so that you can protect your loved ones and your minor children.

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And the answer is yes, you should do estate planning anytime you change jobs. The reason for this is you will have a change not only in your income and not only in the job that you’re holding, but you will also likely have a change in the retirement benefits and other employment benefits that you will receive through your new employer.

You’ll want to make sure that your beneficiary designations are up to date and current, and you’ll also want to make sure that your beneficiary designations work with your estate plan, if you have one. And if you don’t have an estate plan, you’ll want to establish one so that you can direct who your property goes to.

And more importantly, you can create documents that will appoint someone to make financial and healthcare decisions for you if something were to happen to you. So changing jobs is one of those major life events that would warrant a sit down meeting with an attorney to talk about your estate planning goals, your estate planning objectives, and talk about what’s changed in addition to your new job.

If you have questions about estate planning and would like to discuss this more, please click the link or contact us through this website:

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One question that I receive is about estate planning for senior citizens. And first, the question is, if I’m a senior citizen, do I need estate planning? And second is, if I’ve already done estate planning, do I need to have my plan reviewed and updated? And the answer to both of these questions is yes.

If you are a senior and you have not done estate planning, you definitely should sit it down with an attorney to talk about estate planning. If you’ve done estate planning, but it’s been several years since you reviewed it, you should also talk with an attorney to talk about any changes that have happened in your life over the intervening years.

I’ve met with people who have gone 10, 15, 25 years without reviewing or updating their estate plan, and frequently things have changed a lot during that time period. Maybe their children have grown and move out of the house, maybe they have new grandchildren. Maybe the seniors themselves have retired from their lengthy careers and they want to make sure that their plan reflects what their goals and wishes are today.
So if you’re a senior and whether you’ve done estate planning already, or whether you have not done estate planning, you will want to sit down with a qualified estate planning lawyer to talk about your plan. And if you’ve already done estate planning, you’ll want to talk about updating your plan.

If you have questions about estate planning and would like to discuss this more, please click the link or contact us through our website:

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If you are a first responder, it is vitally important for you to do estate planning. If you’re a fire person, if you’re a police officer, if you are a medical care provider, if you’re a social worker who responds to pressureful situations or Crisis situations, it is critical that you do estate planning.

The reason for this, as you know, is that first responders have a very high stress, high pressure job. It’s also high risk, and if something were to happen to you, you want to make sure that your family is taken care of. And the way to do that is to plan in advance. Have a revocable trust, have a will, have all of your health care documents in place, have a financial power of attorney in place. It is critically important for yourself and for your family that you have done proper estate planning.

If you are a first responder, if you have questions about estate planning and would like to discuss this more, please click the link or contact us through our website:

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And the answer is yes, you do need to do estate planning for yourself. Even if you came through the bankruptcy and you don’t have significant assets, or you don’t have the assets that you once did, it is still important to do estate planning.

The reason for this is twofold. First, if you don’t have the same level of assets that you once did before the bankruptcy, that is just the state of affairs today. You will continue to acquire assets over your lifetime and you need to make decisions about how those assets will be distributed if something happens to you.

The second reason has to do with the potential for incapacity. If something happens to you where you cannot make financial or health care decisions for yourself anymore, you will want to appoint someone to make those decisions for you.

And so you are planning for the future and planning for future assets that you will acquire, as well as planning for a potential for incapacity.

If you have questions about estate planning and would like to discuss this more, please click the link below or contact us through our website:

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And the answer is yes. Even if you are single, you still need to do estate planning. The reason for this is twofold. First, you own property, you own assets, and if something were to happen to you and you pass away, you would want to make sure that your assets and property go to the people that you want them to go to.

The second reason has to do with incapacity. We all think that we’re going to live forever and we’re going to be healthy while we live forever, but unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Sometimes things happen and we might become incapacitated. As a single person, you will want to designate who will make decisions for you if you’re not able to manage your day to day decisions related to health care, and you’re not able to manage your day to day decisions related to your finances.

So planning for a single person is extremely important. First, you want to make sure that your assets go to the people that you want them to go to. And second, you want to make sure you have a team of people that can help you make decisions if you’re not able to make the decisions yourself.

If you have questions about estate planning and would like to discuss this more, please click the link or contact us through our website:

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Frequently I will meet with families, whether it’s a single individual or a married couple, and they will want to leave their family vacation property to their family, whether it’s their children or other loved ones.

If there’s more than one child or more than one loved one who will inherit the family vacation property, it’s worthwhile to have a serious conversation with them about what your goals and desires are.

From the planning perspective, you will want to get into details, such as who will own the property, how are the expenses for the property shared, and you’ll also want to discuss tax issues. There are a number of different tax issues that may come up.

If you would like to have a conversation about planning for your family vacation property, feel free to click the link or contact my office.

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One of the best ways to avoid probate is to set up a revocable living trust. When you set up a revocable living trust and transfer your assets to that trust, you can avoid probate for the assets that are owned by the trust.

Estate planning is important for widows, and the reason for this is that when a married couple owns property and then one spouse passes away, the surviving spouse is often able to continue to manage the community property by himself or herself, and usually may not have to go through probate to make sure that everything is squared away.

However, once the surviving spouse passes away, if he or she hasn’t done estate planning, then the surviving family members will be required to go through probate for the remaining property that the surviving spouse owned. So doing estate planning is very important for widows, just as it’s important for other people as well.