If you want your loved ones to benefit from your assets when you pass away, it’s not enough to tell them this or to have the good intention. You need to go one step further to document this in your estate plan.
Whether you have minor children and need to establish a trust to pass on assets to them and name individuals who can be responsible for their care or adult children that you wish to support if something happens to you, far too many people skip the important process of actually creating an estate plan. Estate planning is a personal process, but it is equally important to consider how you’re supporting others that you love.
Much like life insurance, it’s more about the people that you care about and less about you. Most parents plan to leave something behind to their children, but only 37% said they had a plan in place for transferring their assets, according to a recent research study by Edelman Financial Engines. It’s fairly quick and painless to work with a qualified estate planning attorney to draft an estate plan that determines what happens to your assets.
You can make things much easier for your loved ones by going through this process now and working with an attorney to cover all of the basic aspects of your plan. This will help limit the stress, expense and time invested by your loved ones after you pass away.
If you haven’t yet started or have an older estate plan that no longer matches what you need, now is a perfect time to meet with a Pasadena estate planning lawyer.
