Estate planning is no longer considered the luxurious practice of the rich people who have vast amounts of property. It has become essential for anyone with a considerable set of assets or property to their name to make estate plans and designate who gets the share in their property in their absence. Estate planning has become an essential activity that ensures that there are no legal battles after the demise of a person who originally owned the assets.
Understanding Estate Planning
Simple legal terms accept, for want of other better terms, a will and testament as legally binding after a person’s life, to partition the property and assets they owned. But if the will and testament do not conform to the State Laws, or are not properly drafted with the right wording, there are more chances of the will being contested in courts and the assets being divided according to the hierarchy rules that are dictated by those said State Laws which would differ from State to State, making the whole process much more tedious if assets are owned in different States of the country, in which case, each property would have to be contested for in a different court of law, creating a long and messy route for a legal process.
What does an Estate Plan consist of?
Estate Planning is not the simple process of drafting a last will and testament. There are many additional things like a living trust, plans to mitigate or avoid excess estate taxes, keeping the assets safe even after death, giving them over to the right people and preventing the creditors from having access to that property. The Estate Plans are drafted by the lawyers who are experienced in this field and can have years of expertise to use, creating plans that are perfectly credible and legal for each state where the property is located.
Things that an Estate Plan should cover
An estate plan should cover all the essentials, detail out the property that the person has to their name, all the beneficiaries who stand to gain from the estate, if the property owner has assets and estates in multiple states, have family members who would get a special preference / privilege, who would inherit the main properties and assets and so on.
What is special with an Estate Plan?
An estate plan is legally drafted by a trained professional. And this is why it covers all property in detail and checks for the loopholes and problems, if any are found, with the property. The drafter is advised early on when there is a problem. Estate plans also cover the tax issues, making sure that the hard earned money is not wasted in multiple taxes, choose to clearly specify which part of a property would go to charity, if any. It is so vastly different from just a last will and testament.
It is essential to hire a proper attorney for Estate Planning, someone who is not only experienced but is also having a lot of expertise, like Garfield Logan Law who is specialises in this field.