What is Estate Planning?

Much more than just “making a Will or Trust,” Estate Planning is planning for the various stages of your life.  Of course, this includes deciding what will happen to your property when you die.  But because life is about so much more than your “stuff”, so is Estate Planning.

Estate Planning also includes making your own choices now, while you are able, about how you’d like to be treated if you are incapacitated or at the end of your life.  It’s about designating people you trust to step in and manage your health or financial affairs if you can no longer do it yourself.

Estate Planning can include making sure you legally avoid taxes, protecting your assets from creditors, have your property correctly titled, and have enough insurance coverage.

Estate Planning might also be about:

• Protecting your children from a “bad” marriage, from creditors or from themselves.
• planning for the “fair” or “equal” treatment of all of the children in a blended family.
• getting a family owned business transferred to your children working in the business, while treating your other children equally as well.
• continuing the charitable donations you made during your lifetime.
• finding the best way to leave money for an adult child with special needs.

You are a unique individual and you can make your estate as creative and as individualized as you want when you do your estate planning.