Estate Planning and Drafting Wills: What You Need to Know

Who inherits the house? Who gets the money? Is the silverware going to end up in the wrong hands? You might think that wills and testaments are the major plots of crime novels and legal dramas on TV, but you should not joke about them or take them lightly. We understand that leaving a will means planning your demise besides acknowledging it, but it is for your family's benefit. Just don't write more than one!

Writing a will doesn't have to be complicated. All you need for a holographic will is a handwritten document explaining how you want your assets divided. Most states require that the will be dated. Moreover, you need to sign the will and get a witness signature.

The American Association of Retired Persons acknowledges that creating a will usually isn't the most pleasant activity, but doing so helps your heirs avoid uncertainties and hassles. Unfortunately, only three out of five Americans over the age of 45 have wills. Drafting a will and planning the distribution of your estate expresses your wishes in clear, legal terms that no one can ignore or dispute. Without a will, state law governs the distribution of your assets.

To make things easier and clearer, let's see today some things you need to consider regarding estate planning and writing wills.

Things to Know About Estate Planning and Preparing a Will

The regulation of wills depends on state law, and requirements can vary from state to state. Wills divide the family silver and state your preferences of whom you wish to take custody of your children. Experts say that estate planning is our way to prepare (and even combat) life's (bad) surprises or inevitabilities. It is not an entertaining task, but it will protect your family and assets from unfortunate circumstances. Here are the most crucial steps for successful estate planning:

• Identify your planning goals - such as protecting assets, providing for your family, preparing for personal disability, and so on.
• List all the assets you own independently or jointly.
• Identify any risks to each asset's value - such as a steep drop in the stock market, nursing home costs, increasing healthcare costs, and bad business projections - and make thorough plans to protect the asset.
• Identify loved ones you wish to leave assets or protect with an annuity or guardian for underage children. Your plan can include the spouse, children, other family members, friends, and even pets.
• Determine what - if any - assets you want to leave to charity.
• Find out if any of your heirs or beneficiaries have special needs requiring special asset protection. It sounds like a movie plot, we know, but in some cases, you need to put special rules in place, so some of your heirs spend their inheritance wisely.
• Determine whether you owe any estate tax, and plan accordingly. You and your attorney should consider all the federal and state taxes applying to your estate's size.
• You can avoid probate by several other estate planning procedures like setting up a trust.
• Consider whether you want to set up provisions to finance your lifestyle should you become incapacitated. If an injury or illness leaves you debilitated (temporarily or permanently), you need to establish who will make the best decisions for you and what care you want to receive.
• Review your insurance policies, update them and decide whether you need more coverage to give your heirs financial security.
• Settle on what estate planning tools to use - such as trusts, advanced directives, last will, and provisions for loved ones.
• Implement your plans.

Hiring an Attorney to Implement Your Plans

Although you don't need an attorney for a simple will, the larger your estate, the more complicated estate planning becomes. It doesn't matter if your attorney writes your will or you scribble it on the back of a napkin. As long as it's properly witnessed and you're adjudged to be mentally competent at the time of the will's creation, it will be valid.

Attorneys can help with the complexities of dividing an estate equitably. Joint wills with your spouse aren't valid in many states because spouses pass away at different times, and one or both spouses might want to leave legacies to ex-spouses and children from another marriage.

That's just one of the potential complications of modern estate planning. You should consult experienced estate planning attorneys to set up asset distribution according to your wishes and protect assets. The implementation of your plans may also require changing the ownership of some properties, transferring assets to a trust, creating legal documents, record directives regarding your care, appointing people with power of attorney to act as your agents on the real estate market, or make decisions regarding your health, etc. For all these and many more, a law firm you can trust is the foundation of your entire plan.

According to an article posted at investopedia.com, estate planning is critical for providing for loved ones, providing for yourself if you become incapacitated, and allowing family members to control your assets if you become too disabled to handle the estate personally.

As a bonus, estate planning attorneys can securely store the latest copy of your will, provide tax guidance, and coordinate probate and non-probate assets to ensure that your heirs have immediate access to essential resources for everyday living.

Author Bio: With a law degree under his belt and years of experience, Mark Scott set off to make the law more accessible to all. He decided to help people lost in the maze of legal terminology to find their way. Mark writes clear and concise pieces and gives simple advice that is easy to follow. On account of positive feedback from readers, he decided to dedicate more of his time to this goal and became a legal columnist. In his writings, Mark covers a wide array of topics, like how to seek legal counsel, or how to deal with different procedures. Furthermore, he directs his readers toward other trustworthy resources for more in-depth information.

(Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)