Simple Things You Can Overlook When Planning Your Estate

Planning your estate will allow you to identify possible beneficiaries of your assets while you’re still alive, which allows you to have a say in what happens to your belongings when you’re gone. Estate planning can be a complicated process, which means that some of the smaller aspects of the process can be overlooked. Understanding what these factors are and how to implement them may help you substantially when planning your estate.

Make Sure That You Update Your Will Periodically

One of the most important aspects of creating an estate plan is to update this plan accordingly. While it’s certainly beneficial to have an estate plan created in the event that you die suddenly, the things that you want may change over time, which is why you should update your will on a regular basis. Whether a death occurred in the family or you have acquired an additional property, these events need to be accounted for in an estate plan. Consider updating your will every year or two.

Focus on Reducing Possible Estate Tax

Estate taxes are taxes that are taken from the assets that you have provided to your beneficiaries. However, there are things that you can do to reduce the amount of taxes that your beneficiaries will owe. You can make gifts of up to $14,000 per year to individuals or businesses, all of which can be exempt from the collection of estate tax.

Find the Right Person to Handle Your Estate

Many people choose a child or spouse to handle their estate once they are gone. However, these individuals may be too personally invested to do so properly, which is why you may want to consider someone who isn’t as invested to take on the duties that are required of a trustee or executor. If you are having difficulties with crafting your estate plan, you may want to consider retaining the services of an estate planning lawyer in Las Vegas who can help you along the way.

Why an Attorney May Make a Good Trustee

An attorney may make a good choice to be a trustee because he or she generally has a strong understanding of the law. This means that there is less of a chance that decisions will be made based on anything other than a factual understanding of what a trust says. While you may want to choose an adult child or friend to be a trustee, that person may make decisions based on emotion as opposed to acting as a fiduciary.

Does Your Child or Friend Have Experience Managing Money?

If your oldest son or closest friend has little experience managing money, there could be problems in administering a trust in the future. For instance, your friend from school may not understand how to calculate return on investment or understand what a step-up basis is. Whomever you choose to oversee the trust may also have a hard time saying no to a beneficiary who wants money to buy a new car or take a trip overseas.

Other Family Members Could Feel Unappreciated

When you choose a family member to act as a trustee, others could feel left out or as if they weren’t considered trustworthy by a parent or grandparent. This could lead to family infighting that may result in time and money spent in court. The money spent on legal fees and court costs will generally come from the trust itself, which may erode its total value.

You Can Always Name Multiple Trustees

It is possible to name more than one trustee, and they can work together to ensure that the trust is executed as the grantor intended. Consulting with a trust administration lawyer in Las Vegas could help you decide how to structure the document as well as who should be named to oversee it.

Why You Should Review an Estate Plan After a Divorce

The end of a marriage can be an emotionally turbulent time for an individual. This may be true even if you saw the end coming long before it actually happened. While you are likely more concerned with putting your life back together after a divorce, it is important to consider its impact on your long-term future. This means scheduling an estate plan review.

Make Changes to Beneficiary Designations

Perhaps the best reason to review your estate plan is that it gives you a chance to change a beneficiary designation. Instead of your spouse getting your home or car, your son or daughter will get those assets. Alternatively, you can choose to leave the assets to a grandchild, sibling, or charity. Putting assets in a trust may be ideal in the event that your children or grandchildren aren’t likely to be old enough to accept them personally upon your death.

Prepare for Your Second Marriage

Changing an estate plan now can prepare you for the possibility of getting married again in the future. As the divorce rate is higher for second marriages than first marriages, you will want to safeguard your property as best as possible. Taking steps to do so today can be especially helpful if you don’t like the idea of prenuptial agreements. Even if you don’t get married again, it is important to reduce the odds of being taken advantage of as you age.

An Attorney Can Work on Your Estate Plan

An estate planning attorney in Las Vegas can help you create or edit plan documents as necessary. This may increase the odds that your legacy is secure after going through a divorce. In fact, creating or reviewing an estate plan with an attorney can reduce the odds of anyone successfully challenging its validity for any reason.

Identifying Which Assets Should Go Through Probate

When you’re making your will, it’s important that you’re aware of which assets must go through probate and which do not need to be taken through the lengthy process. Your will determines how your assets are divided among beneficiaries, which is why you may want to know which of your assets can be given to your beneficiaries quicker by being able to avoid the probate process.

What Is Probate?

Probate is a type of legal process wherein a petition is filed in court to place the will in probate and to appoint what is known as an executor to the case. It is during this process that any creditors that the deceased was indebted to would collect from the remaining assets of the estate. Some of your assets will be required to go through this process while others do not need to go through probate and can instead be transferred more quickly to any of your inheritors.

Which Assets Need to Go Through Probate?

Probate is only necessary for the property of yours that was owned solely in your name or was owned jointly with someone else, such as a business that was owned with your son. An example of some of the property that is solely owned by you would be a car or a house that you own. Many other types of assets do not need to go through probate court, allowing you to control these more freely.

Assets That Don’t Require Probate

Most assets will not need to go through probate, especially if you were married or prepared beforehand to avoid a court case being opened. All your retirement accounts and any property that was placed within a living trust will not need to go through probate. Pension plans, U.S. savings bonds, life insurance proceeds, and wages that are due to you are just a few examples of assets that would be able to skip the process altogether. To better understand the probate process and all that it entails, you may want to contact a probate attorney in Las Vegas.

The Importance of Digital Assets in Your Estate Plan

Digital assets are commonly overlooked when it comes time to start making an estate plan. These assets include any accounts that you have online — from career information to your digital movie collection. Given that most of these accounts are protected by passwords, it can be difficult for them to remain accessible once the account holder dies. It’s possible, however, to fold these digital assets into the rest of your estate plan, allowing you to be confident that the assets can be accessed by your loved ones in the event that you pass away.

Speak With a Financial Advisor or Attorney Regularly

In order to best understand how to protect your digital assets and how to make sure that your relatives or beneficiaries have access to these assets, it’s important that you talk with your financial advisor or attorney on a regular basis, as they will be able to properly guide you on how to fill out the necessary paperwork and avoid any potential mistakes. There are a large number of options for an estate planning lawyer in Las Vegas for you to consider, allowing you to select the one that fits your situation.

Record All Passwords and Create an Inventory of Digital Accounts

Before you go any further in protecting your digital assets, focus on gathering all of the passwords to your digital accounts. Keep this list in a safe and protected place so that you won’t lose it. The trustee of your estate plan should be told where this list is being kept. You will also want to take a digital inventory of your subscriptions and accounts at least once every year.

Be as Detailed as Possible

Each asset is different, which is why you want to include details about all of your digital assets within the will that you’re planning. These details should also include a statement that authorizes someone to handle these assets once you’re gone. If you want to provide these assets to someone other than your main beneficiaries, you need to state this in the document.