How to Plan an Estate for a Terminally Ill Child

Estate planning is important for anyone who has assets. When a terminally ill child has assets under their name, parents or guardians need to include estate planning as a part of the legal activities they do on behalf of their child. Here’s how the process works for children with a terminal illness and why it’s important.

Set Up a Trust and Will

Minor children cannot directly inherit an estate. If you don’t already have one, set up a special needs trust for your terminally ill child. You’ll also need a will for distribution of personal assets of your child. A will may also include details about medical or healthcare power of attorney. If you’re not available to make those decisions at the time, this document will be used.

Choose an Executor for the Terminally Ill Child

The trust protects your child’s assets. If there are funds left in the trust after your child’s passing, the executor will be in charge of distributing them. It’s important to choose an executor you feel confident in and trust. If you don’t have a family member or friend who can do this for you, a business planning lawyer in Las Vegas may function as an executor of the will for a child with a terminal illness.

Include What the Child Wants

As early as possible in your child’s terminal illness, ask them what they want. While the subject is macabre, you might be surprised about how your child wants to be remembered or if they want anything special done in their memory. Your child’s estate planning process might include the details for a celebration of life event. A child with a terminal illness might have a friend in mind to take care of a treasured item.

Don’t Let Your Will Divide Your Family: Tips to Preserve Family Harmony

It should come as no surprise that it is essential to draft a will. No matter how much or how little property you own, or how much money you have in the bank, properly allocating your estate before you die is imperative if you do not want to leave that task to your loved ones. Working with a probate attorney in Las Vegas can help you make these decisions objectively and prevent your family members from fighting over your assets.

How to Divide Assets in a Will to Foster Family Harmony

Should everything be divided equally? Who should and should not receive a bequest? If you die without a will, some laws determine the allocation of your financial and property assets equitably based on who your immediate relatives are. The purpose of a will is to give you control over your assets before your death.

Consider talking to your family members before speaking to a lawyer to find out if there are any specific interests in your property. While you cannot please everyone, it may help you to know who has always really loved your baseball card collection, or which family member has always hoped to inherit that painting in your living room. You can avoid a lot of familial disharmony by sorting some of these gifts out in writing before your death so that your loved ones do not have to sift through your possessions and fight over them once you’re gone.

Once you have a rough idea of what you own, and a basic idea of what your close relatives may and may not be interested in, that is when a lawyer can really help you put it all together fairly and equitably to preserve family harmony.

Consulting a Las Vegas Probate Lawyer for Clarity

If writing your will is becoming a stressful endeavor or feel as if you are in over your head, an attorney can help. Your attorney will be able to ask questions to determine your individual needs and help craft a will that suits your needs now and the needs of your family when you die. A probate attorney will have the financial and legal knowledge to help you make these vital decisions for the peace of mind you and your family members deserve.

Protect Your Assets With These 3 Estate Planning Moves

While many people focus on growing their assets in order to bolster their retirement funds or purchase a new home, it’s also important that you take steps to protect your assets and estate. An effective method for protecting your wealth is by engaging in estate planning, which will allow you to pass your wealth to your heirs when you die.

Write a Will

The first and likely most important step towards protecting your estate and the assets within is to create a will. A will is a legal document that details how you want your assets to be distributed at the moment of your death. You can be very precise with your will, which gives you complete control over which beneficiaries receive specific assets.

Having a will in place should also lessen the stress that your family members go through in the months following your death. Keep in mind that a will can be officially prepared by an attorney, which reduces the possibility that you make a mistake.

Focus on Protecting Your Assets With Estate Planning

While protecting your assets shouldn’t be too difficult, there’s always a possibility that a lawsuit will be filed against you, which makes it more likely that you could lose some of your assets. Whether a lawsuit is filed by a neighbor or customer of yours, protecting your assets ahead of time should allow you to avoid losing all of your hard-earned money if a lawsuit occurs. When you engage in estate planning, it’s possible to protect your assets by placing them in legally protected vehicles.

Consider Creating a Trust

If you have a significant amount of assets within your estate, you’ll likely want to create a trust, which will make it easier for you to protect these assets. While a will is only used after your death, trusts can help you protect your assets when you’re alive. The two primary types of trusts include living trusts and testamentary trusts, the latter of which is only created when you die.

Because of the benefits provided by a trust, they will cost much more to create when compared to a will. If you need assistance in determining which type of trust is right for your estate, you may consider retaining the services of a trust administration lawyer in Las Vegas.

Top Benefits of Annuities as Part of Estate Strategies

What Is the Purpose of Fixed Annuities?

Fixed and deferred annuities provide two distinct and stable guarantees to estate owners. Firstly, any income invested into this type of structured annuity is guaranteed protected from a loss of income by the insurer of the policy, as well as a guaranteed rate of return, regardless of any other portfolio-related factors. This means that the amount of money originally invested into the annuity will be granted to the heirs based on the minimum amount of the policy, but in some cases more.

Having a policy with a minimum income benefit and minimum withdrawal benefit combined with an accumulation benefit, wherein all benefits are guaranteed, provides estate owners with the assurance that regardless of the performance of the portfolio for the annuity, a minimum amount of income will be available to the beneficiaries of the annuity’s policy.

What About Individuals Who Are Most Concerned About Their Funds Lasting Through Retirement?

For individuals who are more concerned about their account balance not dropping to nothing during their lifetime rather than securing a guaranteed income for their heirs, they can manage this risk through the use of what are known as immediate annuities. More and more evidence is coming out that when an individual allocates a small portion of their retirement income toward providing an immediate and stable income in their retirement years, these types of annuities have the potential to last over the course of the individual’s entire lifetime, no matter how long they live for.

What Strategies Are Useful for Real Estate Owners Who Want More Control?

Estate owners can use stretch annuities in order to maintain better control of the annuity. The way stretch annuities work is that a deferred annuity must be structured so that the beneficiaries of the annuity have to take the proceeds of the policy in the form of an annuity over an extended period of time.

To find out more information about how to benefit from annuities as an estate strategy, you may need to research various estate planning lawyers in Las Vegas.

Smart Charitable Donation Strategies for Your Will

The assets that you work hard to acquire during your lifetime are very important to you. While you already have plans to leave charitable donations to your family and friends, you should also consider your favorite charity. You could arrange this by adding the company to your will, but that might not be the best strategy to use. Not only could money and property get stuck in probate, but there could be problems with getting your wishes carried out.

Thankfully, there are other strategies you can use to have a better outcome. According to what you need and what your goals are, the below approaches could work very well for you. Continue reading so that you find a way that both you and your charity can prevail.

Set Up a Charitable Donation Trust Endowment

Using a charitable trust endowment to share your part of your assets with the charity of your choice is very effective. A system called a charitable remainder trust, or CRT, is a great idea to consider. With this trust, you can retitle the assets so that the CRT owns them. At the time of your death, the assets are then allocated to the charity based on the instructions that you included in the documents for the trust.

Work With a Lawyer to Include Business Succession

When you decide to help a nonprofit or charity, you aren’t limited to monetary donations in your giving. You can pass on nearly any asset to your philanthropic interests. For example, this includes jewelry, vehicles, real estate, life insurance policy benefits, stock and even business partnerships. This means that while you are setting up your business succession planning, you can also add in your plans for charitable donations. But, to ensure this is correct, work with a business planning lawyer in Las Vegas. Then, you will have the security that comes with a lawyer experienced with business continuation and wills.