Estate Planning For Families and Business Owners

Avoid conflict, keep your affairs private, and ensure your wishes are carried out!

ESTATE PLANNING

With our unique life and legacy planning model, we empower you to make strategic legal and financial decisions with confidence and knowledge, grateful that you have a plan to keep everyone you love out of court and out of conflict after your passing or incapacity.

Planning for Everyone you Love and Everything You Have

You love your family and want to ensure they know precisely what to do and have a reliable advisor to assist them if (and when) something happens to you. You want to pass on what you have worked hard for your entire life and do it in a way that is filled with ease and grace.

Your wealth is not just measured by the size of your bank account, but by the wellbeing and care of the people you leave behind. However, you might not be exactly sure how that translates into legal documents, such as Wills, Trusts, Healthcare Directives, Powers of Attorneys, etc. You might even be thinking that you can Do-It-Yourself online using the technology that is being advertised.

Planning for Everyone you Love and Everything You Have

You love your family and want to ensure they know precisely what to do and have a reliable advisor to assist them if (and when) something happens to you. You want to pass on what you have worked hard for your entire life and do it in a way that is filled with ease and grace.

Your wealth is not just measured by the size of your bank account, but by the wellbeing and care of the people you leave behind. However, you might not be exactly sure how that translates into legal documents, such as Wills, Trusts, Healthcare Directives, Powers of Attorneys, etc. You might even be thinking that you can Do-It-Yourself online using the technology that is being advertised.

We know (and will help you understand too) that do-it-yourself estate planning will leave your family lost and unsupported and may even cause the loss of your assets when something happens to you. By then, it will be too late for your family to clean up the mess left behind.

With our help, you will feel assured that you have made all the correct choices about the use of your resources while living, and that your family will be left with support and a clear plan if you become ill, are injured, or pass away.

 

Life is full of complicated legal and financial decisions, and you do not have to make them
alone.

SCHEDULE ONLINE HERE

We know (and will help you understand too) that do-it-yourself estate planning will leave your family lost and unsupported and may even cause the loss of your assets when something happens to you. By then, it will be too late for your family to clean up the mess left behind.

With our help, you will feel assured that you have made all the correct choices about the use of your resources while living, and that your family will be left with support and a clear plan if you become ill, are injured, or pass away.

Life is full of complicated legal and financial decisions, and you do not have to make them alone.

SCHEDULE ONLINE HERE

The Powerful Ways Your Life & Legacy Plan Protects You and Your Family

1. Privacy

A little-known fact about probate court – which is where you end up if you do not plan in advance or if you have a poorly drafted plan from the internet – is that it is all public. Your affairs, no matter how private you were during your lifetime, are made public for all to see. Don’t believe it? Do a Google search for "probate court live YouTube" and see what you find. Instead of finding yourself at the center of a YouTube hearing, plan in advance to keep your legal, financial, and family information private.

2. Control

Without an estate plan, you are leaving all your most important decisions – legal, financial, and medical – up to a judge to make for you. Judges are extremely busy, they have never met you, and they do not know your values, your family, your needs, your desires, or your goals. Instead of relying on someone you have never met to carry out your wishes, take control over your affairs and document in advance who will make decisions for you.

3.Comprehensiveness

Regardless of the popularity of internet-drafted wills and trusts, a huge disadvantage of cookie-cutter documents is they do not cover all situations your loved ones may face, specific to your family dynamics and assets. How could they? As with all things, you get what you pay for. Our life and legacy planning process educates you on how we protect everyone and everything you love so together we can ensure your estate plan comprehensively covers your distinctive situation.

4. Life Stewardship

Life and legacy planning is more than just incapacity and death planning– it is equally about purposeful life planning. Our clients constantly articulate to us that our exceptionally unique life and legacy planning process results in their becoming better parents, stronger business owners, and wiser citizens of the community solely as a result of how we help them look at everything they have and everyone they love to design their personalized estate plan.

HOW WE HELP

We help you to create a personalized plan that includes elements of all of the following, depending on what is best for you and your family. We have thoughtfully packaged what we do into customizable options for you and your family, and all of our fees are flat-rate and agreed to in advance so there are no surprises.

Wills, Trusts, and General Powers of Attorney

Guardianship Nominations

Health Care Directives and Medical Powers of Attorney

Asset Protection Planning

Our Stress – Free Process

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Estate planning is the process of creating a comprehensive plan for the management and distribution of your assets and property after your passing.

It involves creating legal documents, such as a will, a trust, power of attorney, etc., to ensure that your wishes are carried out and your loved ones are protected.

Estate planning is important because it allows you to control what happens to your assets and provide for your loved ones in the event of your death or incapacity.

That’s why we’ve developed a process to help you transfer your most important personal assets to your loved ones – your intellectual, spiritual, and human assets – who you are and what’s important to you.

A Last Will is a legal document that allows you to specify how some of your assets should be distributed upon your death. However, other assets may not be distributed based on your Last Will, but rather on the beneficiary designations that you have set up.

 

Unfortunately, a significant portion of the adult population in the US does not have a Last Will, and for those who do, many Last Wills are not comprehensive enough to cover their specific situation.

 

The only way to ensure that a Last Will is valid is by filing it in probate court, which is a public and time-consuming process that may delay your family’s access to your assets.

Probate is the legal process of settling a person’s affairs and distributing their assets after death. The outcome of probate is largely dependent on whether the deceased had a valid will.

However, even in cases where no will exists or the will is deemed invalid, the probate process is similar. The court appoints someone to oversee the probate process and manages the legal actions which include, determining the validity of the will (if any), appointing an executor or administrator, locating, and valuing assets, notifying, and paying creditors, filing, and paying taxes, and distributing assets to beneficiaries. In short, probate is a court process against yourself for the benefit of your creditors.

Though this process is necessary, it can be a difficult and costly experience for loved ones, taking a long time and being highly inconvenient, and sometimes messy, unless the deceased had a proper estate plan in place.

 

Yes! While you may be able to create your own will or trust using online templates, it is highly recommended that you consult with an attorney who specializes in estate planning.

Estate planning is a critical aspect of securing the future of your loved ones and the assets you have worked hard to acquire. The best outcome for you and your family can be achieved by working with a lawyer who has extensive experience in estate planning and can address the unique needs of your family.

Unfortunately, some families experience collapse after the death of a loved one due to lack of proper planning or because they used an online platform that was not tailored to their specific needs and ultimately failed them.

We believe in fostering a lifelong relationship with our clients, so that you have a lawyer for life to be there for your family when you cannot. It is important to ask questions and ensure that the estate plan put in place will be effective when it is needed and not just a pile of paper that is ineffective in protecting your assets and loved ones.

No! Estate planning is important for everyone, not just those who are wealthy. Everyone has an estate that is valuable and should be protected.

Estate planning is not just about transferring financial assets and personal belongings, it is also about capturing and transferring intangible gifts such as values, insights, stories, and experiences.

This is a valuable and meaningful way to ensure that your loved ones continue to feel your presence and guidance even after you’re gone. 

Think of a Trust as a “Will substitute.” What we mean is that just as a Last Will distributes your assets upon death, a Revocable Living Trust does the same.

 

The upside of a Trust over a Will is that a Trust need not be filed with the probate court to be effective, whereas a Last Will must be filed with the probate court to have any effect. As a result, a Trust remains a private document pertaining to your private affairs, while a Last Will becomes a public document after you pass away no matter how private you were during your lifetime.

 

Of course, there are additional types of trusts as well that serve different purposes, and each family’s unique situation must be taken into account to design the right overall estate plan, which may include one or more Trusts.

We ensure that your plan is reviewed every 3 years (free of charge) to keep up with any changes in your assets, family situation, and laws. We aim to build a lifelong relationship with our clients, as things change throughout life, and we make sure that your plan adapts to those changes.

Cost is a common concern when it comes to estate planning, and we understand that it can be a sensitive topic when choosing a professional to guide you. To address this, we have designed our fees on a flat-fee basis, so you know exactly what you’re committing to and there are no surprises.

We cannot quote fees online or over the phone, but we invite you to attend one of our upcoming events where we will provide information about our unique meeting process and fee schedule. This will give you the opportunity to learn more about how to take the next steps at the best time for you and your loved ones.

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