What Are The Basic Items Entailed In An Estate Plan?

For most people, an estate plan will have some form of a trust at the center of the plan. This is in order to avoid probate. Around the trust will be a will, which will handle anything that for some reason is not in the trust at the time of death such as lottery winnings or something they may have inherited that they have transferred to their trust or trusts. In conjunction with that, there will be what’s known as a Power of Attorney. Power of Attorney is especially important as clients get older so that there are other people such as their children or spouse that are able to handle the monetary requirements of their assets so that in the event of a disability or incapacity, everything doesn’t fall to pieces. Another component of a proper estate plan is a healthcare proxy.

A healthcare proxy is designed to allow people that care for you and your care to help make healthcare decisions if the individual is incapacitated and can’t make their own healthcare decisions. Together with that would be what’s known as a HIPAA authorization, which would allow family members and others that you designate to have access to the healthcare information that they need to make decisions, and finally, a living will.

A living will, even though it’s got the word “will” in it, is not like a will at all. It’s designed essentially to communicate what the individual’s end-of-life decisions are in the event that they are incapacitated, in a vegetative state with no chance of recovery and on life support. The idea is to avoid a Terry Schiavo-type scenario where loved ones must go to court, get guardianship orders and may fight over whether life support measures should be kept or removed at any given point in time. Instead, the client can communicate what their wishes are in advance and how they want those wishes carried out. Giving authorization to their healthcare proxy ensures that those directives are given to the attending physician. At that time, the attending physician can rely on the healthcare proxy and the supporting documents to make decisions such as whether to remove life support and not be concerned about liability.

How Long Does It Typically Take To Create An Estate Plan?

Creating an estate plan can be done quickly if somebody is in a rush, or it can take a while if they have a significant amount of assets and they want to really think through everything very carefully before they commit those assets to the designated trusts. I have had clients that have come in and said, “I’ve got an operation next week and I’m very concerned, can we do something immediately because I don’t want to, G-d forbid, die on the operating table without having a proper estate plan in place,” and in situations like that, we can rush an estate plan in a few days. The decisions must be made very quickly as to what exactly they want but as long as they’re willing and able to make those decisions, an estate plan can be put in place. But the typical timeline for an estate plan is usually between two to four weeks.

In general, two weeks would be considered quick because most people will need time to make all the decisions, and they need time to digest various different choices before making all their decisions. So, it usually takes three to four weeks for a client to fully understand the choices, make informed decisions about those choices and then to communicate those to the attorney so that their wishes can be properly drafted and put into place. We also have to set up a date for signing where we gather all the parties that are necessary and sign the documents, communicate to the trustees, executors and everybody else that’s involved and explain what their roles are in the estate plan.

What Are The Qualities I Should Look For When Choosing An Estate Planning Attorney?

Choosing an estate planning attorney is not necessarily the easiest process that one can go through. Various different estate planning attorneys have different levels of experience and they have different levels of personality. A client will want to find somebody who matches their personality and understands and is able to communicate clearly to the client. The attorney should understand the client’s problems, issues, goals and dreams. There are two things that a client should always look for in finding an estate attorney. One is to be comfortable that the attorney understands your specific needs. Second is to be comfortable that the attorney is communicating to you in a way that you are comfortable and can identify solutions to your particular needs in a way that you understand your choices and allow you to make the necessary intelligent decisions.

How Often Should People Give Their Estate Planning A Checkup?

There is no specific answer to how often an estate plan should be reviewed. A well-drafted estate plan is going to weather many changes in the environment if changes have been anticipated and discussed. The estate plan should be created to reflect the client’s desires and goals and should be able to weather small changes to those goals and desires because it should be somewhat flexible and drafted within the structure of what the client wants to achieve. An estate plan should also be structured to withstand certain changes in the law.

A client should be looking to have their estate plan reviewed and possibly amended when things in their life have changed or major changes in the law have taken place. There are going to be changes in their life that are going to be trigger points where they should be reviewing their estate plans such as additions to their family, the birth of children, an increase or a market change in their income level or acquisitions of assets.

Other factors occur as the client ages such as how much of their estate they’re ready to set aside for future generations. Even if they’ve reached a point of financial security there may still be a need to make sure that medical costs don’t eat into their estate later in life. As life changes and as the individual goes through changes or stages of life, they should review their estate plan to make sure that it’s meeting their current stage of life goals and projections into the future.

Another time to review an estate plan is when the tax laws change. If the tax laws remain fairly consistent from year-to-year, then the estate plan should manage unchanged throughout that period of time from that perspective. If there is a significant overhaul in the tax plan such as in the beginning of 2018 with the Trump tax changes, that’s going to affect some estate plans. Some changes in the tax laws are for better and some of them are for worse, so it’s always worthwhile at that point to put a call into the attorney and sit down and discuss how the changes might affect the client’s specific estate plan.

For more information on Basic Items in an Estate Plan in New York, Long Island, Nassau or Suffolk County, a FREE phone consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (516) 806-0762 today.

What Are The Basic Items Entailed In An Estate Plan?