The Estate Planning Process

Regardless of the size of your estate, the estate planning process is an important tool to help you protect your loved ones, your assets, and yourself. Your estate lawyer will listen to your concerns and help you identify the best solutions to establish an estate plan centered on your needs.

Important topics covered in estate planning include:

• Probate
• Wills
• Healthcare Directives and Living Wills
• Revocable and Irrevocable Living Trusts

Choose an Estate Planning Lawyer

Individuals gain tremendous peace of mind knowing that a lifetime of hard work will be passed on according to their wishes. With estate planning, your loved ones will be guided by your words throughout difficult and uncertain times.

Only a qualified estate lawyer can guide you through the vast amount of laws regarding property rights, wills, trusts, taxes, and probate. Do-it-yourself kits are not thorough enough to ensure your plans will be executed according to your wishes.

You can, however, save time and money by preparing your information before meeting with an estate planning lawyer.

Bring with you to the meeting:

• Information on your assets
• Liabilities and title arrangements
• Preliminary plans about providing for various family members
• Copies of important documents such as previous wills or trusts, powers-of-attorney, life insurance policies, and prenuptial agreements or divorce decrees.

Your attorney's advice and direction will be essential to implementing an estate plan that directs your assets according to your wishes and meets your other personal objectives. Always inquire about the level of experience and qualifications in estate planning when selecting an attorney. Most important, you should choose an estate planning attorney who listens to your concerns and makes every effort to meet your needs and gain your confidence.

When it comes to estate planning in Houston, Nichols Law provides impeccable service with highly experienced Houston Estate Lawyers. Their attorneys will work with you to tailor a plan to meet your specific needs and establish a well thought out estate plan that will protect your hard earned assets from estate taxes, disputes and probate.

Do I Need an Estate Plan?

Just about everyone can benefit from an estate plan, but here are a few questions to ask yourself to help determine if the assistance of an estate lawyer can be of any benefit to you:

• Do you have a document that conveys your specific wishes regarding the administration of life-prolonging procedures?
• Have you named someone to make financial and healthcare decisions on your behalf, should you become incapacitated?
• Do you have a last will and testament to insure that your assets transfer in the manner that you would prefer them to transfer?
• Can your heirs afford to wait 9 months to 2 years and pay legal and executor fees prior to your estate being distributed?

If you answered no to any of these questions, an estate plan is imperative to protect your interests from being decided by the State; which may not reflect your wishes at all. If you value making your own decisions about your finances, property, health care, and raising your children, then yes, you need to start thinking about establishing an estate plan. A professional estate attorney can work with you tailor a plan that suits your personal needs and preferences, saving you and your loved ones any unnecessary grief in the future.

Wills and Probate

A will provides for the distribution of property owned by you at the time of your death in any manner you choose. However, assets that pass outside your probate estate such as certain joint property, life insurance, retirement plans, and employee death benefits, cannot be governed by your will unless they are payable to your estate.

Aside from passing your property on to your heirs, there are a number of other important objectives that may be accomplished in your will.

• You may designate a guardian for your minor child or children if you have survived the other parent
• You may designate an executor of your estate in your will
• You may choose to acknowledge or otherwise provide for certain individuals
• You may choose who will serve as your personal representative

Probate is a court-supervised procedure for transferring ownership of your assets after death. This process validates your will and distributes property as dictated by your will, after determining what the estate owes in taxes and other debts.

You name an executor in your will to act as your personal representative who is responsible for overseeing the probate of your estate. Your executor can be a family member, friend, business associate, financial institution, or trust company. However, if you fail to designate a personal representative, the court will appoint one for you.

With professional estate planning, certain assets and estates may not be subject to probate. Talk with a Houston Estate Lawyer to learn how to avoid a lengthy probate.

Health Care Directives and Living Wills

The purpose of a health care directive is to express your preferences in a legal document concerning medical treatment in the event that you are incapacitated or at the end of your life. By expressing such preferences in a written legal document, you are ensuring that your wishes are made known to your family and physicians.

A living will defines how you want to be treated in certain medical conditions. In the document you can communicate whether or not you wish to be given life-sustaining treatments in the event you are terminally ill or injured, and other medical directions that impact the end of life.

A durable medical power of attorney assigns authority to a person to make medical decisions on your behalf in the event you are unable to express your preferences because, for example, you are unconscious or your mental state is compromised.

If you want to change your living will directives or your choice of health care surrogate, you can destroy the document and create a new one with the help of an estate lawyer. Once you have a living will, durable medical power of attorney, or any other health care directive, you should file it with your important papers and make sure several people know where they are.

Revocable and Irrevocable Living Trusts

The term trust describes the holding of property by a trustee in accordance with the provisions of a written trust instrument for the benefit of one or more beneficiaries. A person may be both a trustee and a beneficiary of the same trust.

A trust involves three parties:

• The grantor is you, the person who creates the trust.
• The trustee is the person who agrees to accept your property and manage it as the trust agreement directs. You can name more than one trustee, thus creating co-trustees who must act together.
• The beneficiaries are those who will receive the income from the property in the trust and, with your direction, the property itself.

An irrevocable trust is simply a trust that can not be changed after the agreement has been signed. A revocable living trust may be changed and terminated by you during your lifetime but typically becomes irrevocable after your death.

Both types of trusts can be written to define provisions for property management, assistance to the grantor in the event of physical or mental incapacity, and assignment of property after the death of the grantor of the trust.

The down side to a revocable trust is that assets assigned to the trust will be considered your own personal assets for creditor and estate tax purposes. Assets assigned to an irrevocable trust, however, are usually exempt from being included in the valuation of property in your estate, and can not be taxed after your death or taken by creditors.

The biggest advantage to making any living trust is that property left in the trust does not have to go through probate court. On average, probate lasts 9 months to 2 years. During part of this time, your assets are usually frozen so an accurate inventory can be taken. Nothing can be distributed or sold without the court's approval. In the meantime, if your family needs money to live on, they must request a living allowance, which can be denied depending on the circumstances.

Request an appointment with an estate lawyer in Houston to learn how you can protect your assets from probate, creditors, and excessive estate taxes with a comprehensive estate plan.

DISCLAIMER: This site and any information contained herein is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. Seek competent legal counsel for advice on any legal matter.