Estate Planning - Have A Plan!

While you're alive and able to handle your busy affairs, you value being able to make your own decisions about your finances, property, health care, and raising your children. Should you die or become incapacitated, it is important that you've set in place who you want to handle your affairs according to your wishes. The only way to assure that this will happen is by a thoughtful and properly-drafted estate plan. Nick Yonano and the attorneys and legal staff of Warda & Yonano, LLP have been helping families and individuals with their estate plans for many years. Let our law firm be there for you.

Here is a brief summary of the types of documents which can make up part of an estate plan:

• Will. A will is a written document that you sign, indicating how you want your property distributed, as well as how you want any minor children cared for (guardianship). We often title this document a "Last Will and Testament", which is simply a more complicated name for a will.
• Trust. We're sure you've probably heard of a living trust. But what is it? A living trust is a revocable trust which you (and often your spouse, if you are married) create while you're alive. This is a flexible document in which the grantor (you) transfers title to property to a trust, serves as the initial trustee, and has the ability to remove the property from the trust during his/her lifetime. It is revocable, which means you can change it or revoke at any time while you're around.
  
  Within the terms of a revocable trust are little trusts that us attorneys include in order to assure that the property passes exactly as you intend. For example, there is a trust called a “spendthrift trust”, which is often used by grantors who want a child or other beneficiary to have certain property but want to limit his or her ability to use it up carelessly. And in some cases, a person may want to set up a “special needs trust”, so that property is available for the proper care of a person who has special needs, such as a disabled child or beneficiary.
  
  The opposite of a revocable trust is, you guessed it, an irrevocable trust. An irrevocable trust cannot be altered, changed, modified or revoked after its creation (absent rare and extenuating circumstances). Once a grantor transfers property to an irrevocable trust, the grantor can no longer take the property back from the trust. This type of trust is usually only used where estate taxes are an issue or in the case of life insurance, since life insurance proceeds are considered part of one's estate when the issue of probate is visited.
• Durable Power of Attorney. If you're incapacitated and you need someone to make financial decisions for you and/or carry out your financial needs, such as paying certain bills or approving certain business transactions, this document takes effect and puts that person in charge for the time period in which you are not alert. It is not required. But it is important to have in place.
• Advanced Health Care Directive. This is the modern version of what many used to refer to as a living will. It is essentially your directive as to who handles the decisions involving your health care if you are incapacitated. Or if you do not want anyone to have to make any decisions, you can simply appoint someone to give the directive to a health care provider, and instruct that agent what you want to be done in certain situations. This is something we never plan to happen, and almost never does, but it's still important to have in place just in case.
• Family Limited Partnership. This is a business succession tool, for those who are in need of properly transferring the ownership of their business to their heirs, with the minimum amount of tax paid by law. A properly-drafted limited partnership agreement with provisions that lay out how the ownership transfers in the event of death or disability, is a must for any business owner. An LLC can also work here, but it doesn't have quite the popularity as a FLLP due to limitations in the ability to transfer interests in compliance with tax laws.
• Buy-Sell Agreement. This is another business succession tool. This agreement is either entered into on its own, or as part of a shareholder agreement or limited partnership agreement. Essentially, a buy-sell is what it sounds like: who buys and who sells if something happens. But it's much more than that. It also details how the ownership is financed (often funded by life insurance), and how the business is valued, among many other things.

Is Estate Planning expensive?

Learn about Wills, Trusts and other Estate Planning documents.

Learn about Probate and Trust Administration