When you think or hear the word “estate planning,” what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it creating a will and trust for your family after your death? If you think those are the only thing you need to create a comprehensive estate plan, that is not it. To ensure that your family gets hold of your assets easily, you need to create an effective estate plan.
The documents ensure that all your assets are distributed between your family members the way you wanted after your death. The estate plan will also explain what the family needs to know. For example, what you want to do with your assets, and how you would like to handle all your work after you are incapable of working or when you die. The documents provide all your loved ones with proper legal, medical, and financial knowledge. So, here is a list of all the important estate planning documentation you will need and their importance.
Last Will And Testament
The last will and testament is the legal document that divides all your assets and possessions between family, friends, and charity.
What Is It?
The last will and testament are the first things that come up when creating an estate plan. It is an extremely important legal document because it explains all the important wishes you want people to fulfill after your death. You can add what you want for your funeral or memorial. However, the document’s main aim is to distribute all the assets among the family members. And how to close all the financial accounts and pay any remaining debt. It also states who is going to take responsibility for pets or minors in the family.
How To Make It?
The best way for you to create a proper will is with the help of an attorney. But the first step is gathering all your assets and deciding what you want to give and to whom. Then decide who you want to make your representative. It is the person who will finish up all your will’s work orderly. You are ready to create your last will when you are done making all these decisions.
What Is The Importance?
If you don’t create a last will, your family members will have to go through a long probate court process. Going to a probate court is a lengthy and costly affair. And the state will choose how your assets are going to be distributed. Also, the court gets to decide where the minors of your family will go. On top of this, your family won’t be able to access all your funds to pay for the procedure.
Advanced Healthcare Directive
The healthcare directive document is the outline for all the healthcare decisions made on your behalf.
What Is It?
The healthcare directive is the document that drafts all the important guidelines on how you want all your healthcare decisions made when you cannot do so yourself. The document covers all the scenarios, such as the resuscitation process orders and organ donation wishes.
How To Make It?
Generally, an advanced healthcare directive is created with the will papers itself. And while creating this document, you need to appoint a medical power attorney. And as you start creating these documents, you can include specific information about your future healthcare wishes. To create an advanced directive, you can consult a professional attorney who will help you create a perfect healthcare directive that will cover all the important parts.
What Is The Importance?
This document is perfect for creating a guide for your doctors and family on the type of care you wish to receive one day when you get sick. It is not necessary that you will require this document. But they can come in handy when you want the satisfaction that you are prepared for all the things that may happen in the future.
A lot of people use this document to address how they want to be cared for. For instance, you can add comfort care, artificial nutrition, or any medical care and treatment. If you are worried about your well-being or need a specific type of healthcare, then you can create this document with the help of an attorney.
Beneficiary Designations
The beneficiary designation documents include the distribution of important financial assets between some specific people.
What Is It?
A designated beneficiary is an essential legal document that names one individual who will require some specific type of assets. For example, retirement accounts, insurance policies, or investments. The beneficiary ownership designation allows an individual to access all external accounts directly. Furthermore, these accounts do not have to go through probate before being transferred.
How To Make It?
Making a beneficiary designation generally begins when the investment or insurance company becomes in charge of an asset. For instance, when you buy an insurance policy, the provider will ask you to give a beneficiary designation as the beginning step of setting up the account.
You can also make a beneficiary designation, especially for some specific types of assets, along with all the making of a larger estate plan. In many instances, the information in a beneficiary designation will overrule what is written in the will (if they are dissimilar). To ensure that all your documents are legal and perfectly drafted, you should hire an attorney to safeguard all your assets. To know how an attorney can help you with estate planning, read ‘Expert Estate Planning Attorney Florida | Everything You Must Know.’
What Is The Importance?
When you open a retirement or investment account, the companies keeping your things safe generally ask for a beneficiary designation. And after you do that, you will have no choice but to add it to your portfolio. It limits the investment options for you.
However, when you invest in life insurance policies, the beneficiary designation allows your family member to inherit all the funds instantly. This investment can offer important financial assistance during a difficult time.
Revocable Living Trust
A living trust is just like a will, but it also tells what will happen when you are incapable of doing any work.
What Is It?
A revocable living trust is a legal setup that you can use to distribute all your properties, assets, and all the important things after the owner’s death. When you make a revocable trust, you are only transferring the ownership of all the assets straight to a trust. After transferring the assets, you can manage the assets as a trustee as long as you make a Successor Trustee for the future.
In this setup, the word “revocable” means you can change the distribution terms at any given point in time. Unlike Irrevocable trusts, you have the freedom to change it whenever and however you want. The main advantage of this trust is that you can add new people and beneficiaries as time goes on.
How To Make It?
The process of creating a revocable trust is a bit complicated in contrast to other documents. To do this, you have to create a list of people you want to add to the trust, add specific beneficiaries’ names, and create trust documents.
What Is The Importance?
The work of a Revocable Living Trust is twofold. The first one is that it can make the process of asset distribution easier and faster for your heir. The assets in a Revocable Living Trust are automatically transferred to the beneficiaries after the death. Your family won’t have to wait for the executor to act on the will you make.
The second part of Revocable Living Trust is that it will offer a certain level of privacy to your estate plan. A will is entered into the public report, Whereas Trust documents are kept private. Many families prefer this, especially when dividing the inheritance.
Property Deeds And Titles
Property deeds and titles are important for you to distribute between your family members.
What Is It?
These are the official documents of all your properties, vehicles, and other real estate. When creating a living trust, you have to transfer it to trust first so that your family doesn’t have to go through the probate process. It means that all your titles and deeds should also name the trust as the property’s current owner.
How To Make It?
To create your estate plan, you are required to keep all your deeds and title papers together. Also, you need to ensure that all the information on your deeds and title details are up-to-date to match what is written in your will. That is because if the name of the person in deeds and titles is different from the will, then the name on the deeds will override the ones added to the will.
For instance, if you have a property with your partner and their name is written on the deed or title, then after your death, the property will be theirs (only if they are alive). So, even if you have added someone else’s name to the will, the owner will still be your partner.
What Is The Importance?
Deed and title documents are important as they are perfect for distributing the property to your family. These are the legal documents that you can use to transfer the title of the property to another person. It gives the individual rights to use and modify the property according to their needs. And they can also transfer a piece of property to other people through the deed. A deed shows the legal rights of the owner of the property. So, deeds and titles are the smartest way to distribute your property among family members.
Preneed Guardian Designation
The preneed guardian designation is a legal paper that names a legal guardian to take care of important duties and minors.
What Is It?
A preneed guardian designation allows you to name an individual who you trust and who can become a guardian of your child and property. This document is particularly useful when you and your partner are unavailable to take care of your duties or make important decisions.
How To Make It?
To make a preferred designation, you only have to choose at least two (you can choose more if you want) who you trust and can become a guardian. Then you can make a written declaration that you are appointing such and such people as guardians. These guardians will serve when you are declared incapable of making decisions yourself.
What Is The Importance?
When you fail to appoint a guardian designation, the court can appoint a person you have never met as the guardian. The individual will take care of all your financial, medical, and kids’ decisions. So, if you choose a guardian yourself, you are appointing a person you trust and who is also capable of making good decisions on your behalf.
Letter Of Instructions
It is a document in which you can express all your wishes and requirements.
What Is It?
A Letter of Instruction is not a legally binding document. Nonetheless, this can help your family understand how you want your medical care and funeral. You can also add how to distribute all your property and assets.
How To Make It?
You can draft a non-legal letter of instructions that can help you give proper directions to the individual carrying out all the actions. Then you can add the letter with all the other important documents. You can also use it to give messages to your family and friends, as this is a non-legal document.
A Durable Power Of Attorney
A legal document that gives you the power to an individual to supervise all the areas when you cannot.
What Is It?
When you are creating your estate plan documents, appointing an individual as a Durable Power of Attorney can help you get all your orders in line. The person you appoint for this work can handle medical, financial, and all the other important settlements in case you are not able to do so.
There are various types of Power of Attorney, but the most common is the one that can make decisions on your behalf. And can also handle work like making business transactions, other people’s healthcare decisions, and more.
How To Make It?
To appoint a Power of Attorney, you will first have to decide on a person who can handle all the problems effortlessly. After that, you need to have a conversation with the said person and tell him all his responsibilities. However, you can add all the specific instructions on a legal paper. And the state will tell whether it is important or not for a witness to sign the documents as well.
The usual way to appoint a POA is with the creation of a will or advanced healthcare directive.
What Is The Importance?
In most cases, people avoid making a POA. But they are most beneficial when you are not able to make decisions on your own. When you appoint a POA, you ensure that all your work is done properly and that there is a trusted person who can make good decisions on your behalf.
However, if you do not create a legal document for this work, then your close relative or partner will be given the duty by the court. And it won’t be easy for them to navigate through all this stuff without somebody else’s help.
List Of Essential Documents
It includes a list of all the important documents that family members may need to settle all the affairs. These documents are important for your family to complete all the work without having to worry about where they can find all the important things.
How To Make It?
You can make a list of locations where your family members will find all the important documents to finish all your important work. The list of important documents includes:
- Original real estate deeds
- Bank accounts details
- Original birth certificates
- Retirement accounts
- Life insurance policies
Logins And Passwords
Creating a list of all the important logins and passwords.
What Is It?
In today’s time, it is essential for you to add all your login and passwords to your list of estate planning documents checklist. You can appoint a digital executor who can close the accounts and distribute the important ones to the people in the family.
How To Make It?
You can create a digital vault where you can keep a record of all your logins and passwords. The list of digital assets that you can include in your list are:
- Emails
- Website domain names
- Social media
- Electronic image and video storage space
Conclusion
After you have collected all the necessary information, you should take the help of an expert attorney to draft all your documents. An expert can help you understand all the ins and outs of the legal system. That way, you can create effective estate plan documents. It can also help your loved ones avoid the probate process. So, if you want the help of a professional, you can contact Estate Planning With Nirva today.
We can help you create documents in easy-to-understand language and maintain transparency throughout the process. Our attorney-drafted solutions can help you protect your family and close people. Also, our services are affordable so that you can create the perfect estate plan for your family.
Frequently Asked Questions
Estate planning is a set of important documents. The sets include documents like the last will and testament, Power Of Attorney, Advanced Healthcare Directive, Property Deeds And Titles, and more. This plan helps you create a secure future by distributing your assets to your family.
Estate planning is important if you have assets and property large enough. It can help you distribute all your assets and arrange medical and financial care after your death, or you are considered incapable of making decisions. Furthermore, it makes things easier, like managing your work and asset distribution easier, for your family after your death.
The basic cost of estate planning with an attorney can cost anywhere around $1,000. However, it depends on how comprehensive your estate plan is. For instance, if you add a trust fund into the mix, you will have to pay more than the regular amount. Online estate planning services cost less. But there are only a few that provide attorney-drafted solutions, like Estate Planning With Nirva.