Estate Planning: Incapacity

Who makes critical decisions about your medical care, personal care, and finances if you become incapacitated? You decide who when you complete incapacity estate planning.

Our main incapacity planning tools:

Advance Directives

State your wishes for and specify who you want to make medical decisions on your behalf if can’t make those decisions yourself.

Durable Power of Attorney

Appoint someone to act as your agent to manage your assets (pay your bills, manage your bank account, etc.) for you.

Revocable Trust

Your successor trustee will take over and manage all the assets owned by your trust during your life.

Guardian for Minor

Designate who will care for your minor children if you cannot care for them yourself.

Common end of life planning goals are:

• Decide where your assets go when you die
• Outline how assets transfer after your death
• Decide who will care for your dependents if you aren’t around anymore
• Minimize taxes (income taxes can be an issue for many estates, estate taxes are only a concern for very large estates)

Our main end of life planning tools:

Last Will – This is your instruction manual for the probate court and is the very minimum document you need for end of life planning. You dictate how you want the court to divide your probate property and who you want to care for your children, if you have any.

Revocable Trust – Gives you much more control over your assets after death. You can tell the trustee of your trust when and how to distribute your assets to the beneficiaries. When designed properly, your Revocable Trust can also protect your assets from the beneficiary’s creditors.

These are just some examples of how a Revocable Trust can protect your loved-ones from creditors, predators, and themselves. There are many other benefits to a trust-based estate, such as probate avoidance, privacy, and estate and income tax planning.