Estate Planning 101

If you have already created your will and feel your estate plans are solid, you might be sadly mistaken. While your family should be grieving and coming to terms with your passing, they might end up fighting amongst themselves over the contents of your will. 

It is not uncommon for disputes to happen when sibling rivalry and other issues arise that cause everyone to want what you have left behind for someone else. Before you put your will and estate planning documents aside, consider the following pointers to help prevent disputes over them: 

After you pass away, your physical presence is missed by your loved ones who are left mourning your loss. Often they will spend time looking at your old photos to remember you or see an item of yours they inherited and think of you fondly. But what happens to your digital presence after you die? How does that factor into the way you are remembered?

Social media is a ubiquitous part of many of our lives, regardless of age. For a number of us, it is the new photo album that used to sit on the coffee table or the journal where we wrote with our thoughts and witticisms. Those things are precious to the people we leave behind. Luckily, for most major social media platforms, not all is lost upon our death.

When planning for the future, there are many different scenarios to consider. One important piece of any estate plan is your wishes if you were to become incapacitated or unable to make decisions for yourself any longer. Your will can state your wishes on some of these matters, but you can also appoint a guardian to make medical or financial decisions for you.

So what exactly IS estate planning? When I tell people that I am an Estate Planning attorney, the usual response is "oh that's nice." The after a pause, they ask, "So what is it that you actually do? What exactly IS estate planning?" The short answer that I usually give is, "I create Wills, Trusts, and help clients with Estate Tax Planning." And that usually satisfies their polite yet fleeting curiosity. But for those of you who have stumbled across this blog, you are likely looking for a more in depth description of what an estate-planning attorney actually does. So, I will indulge you with a long answer. First of all, there are as many definitions of estate planning as there are estate-planning attorneys. And although there are more official resources, Wikipedia is easily accessible and where many go to get their information. So I'll start there: Wikipedia defines estate planning as: "the process of anticipating and arranging for the disposal of an estate during a person's life. Estate planning typically attempts to eliminate uncertainties over the administration of a probate and maximize the value of the estate by reducing taxes and other expenses." Say what? That's a lot of fancy legal words. So to make it clear, I'll break this definition down into three parts, all of which will be explained in three separate upcoming blog posts....