Don’t let your inheritance become an issue to fight over or a burden on your loved ones. Without an estate plan St. Clair Shores, your loved ones will have to go through a drawn-out, expensive legal process where a judge decides what happens to your assets. This is stressful for your loved ones, at a time when they don’t need the extra stress. But, the expert estate planners St. Clair Shores from Axis Estate Planning can draw up the perfect estate plan for you so that your inheritance can pass without any issues and your wishes can be followed. There are two main steps to the estate planning process, and they go like this:
- Identifying your estate – First, we record all of what you can include in your estates, such as financial accounts, personal property, life insurance policies, and real estate.
- Transfer planning – After you pass, there will need to be some plan in place for transferring your property. We will work with you to decide how you want your things to be transferred and to whom you want them to be transferred.
Most estate planners St. Clair Shores don’t look beyond your finances to set up your estate plan. It makes sense, but there is more to you than your money and property. Axis Estate Planning recognizes this, and that’s why we plan for your legacy too. Leave your loved ones something important to remember, we can make sure that your family history and heirlooms, as well as beliefs and morals, are preserved to be passed down.
What is included in an estate plan St. Clair Shores?
Estate plans St. Clair Shores can be made up of many different documents depending on how much you need to include. At their most basic, estate plans St. Clair Shores will at least include a Durable (financial) Power of Attorney, a Will, a Medical Power of Attorney, and a Revocable Living Trust. Let’s look at what each one does for you estate plan St. Clair Shores:
- Will – The document where you name guardians for any minor children and direct your assets to their inheritors. A Will alone does not avoid probate. In fact, if there is only a Will then probate will be necessary.
- Probate is the lengthy, often expensive process of validating a Will in court following a death.
- Revocable Living Trust – This acts as your personal “treasure chest,” holding your assets until you become incapacitated or pass away, at which point the instructions you provided in the Revocable Living Trust St. Clair Shores will explain how to transfer your assets.
- There are many advantages to having this. This will allow your family members to avoid probate, it offers flexibility, as well as control and management of your assets, and it reduces the chance of challenges to your estate, among many other benefits.
Estate planning St. Clair Shores is helpful while living, too
You may look at estate planning St. Clair Shores as something that’s helpful to have your wishes followed after you pass. While it is, it can also protect you while you’re alive. There may come a time when you can no longer responsibly make decisions about your health and finances. If this happens, the Medical Power of Attorney and Financial Power of Attorney that you chose in your estate plan St. Clair Shores will take over to make sure that you get the care you need and that your bills are paid on time. These will be people that you pick, ones you trust in each area to do right by you. This is only one of the many, many reasons it’s helpful to have an estate plan St. Clair Shores in place.
If you want to know more about how helpful an estate plan St. Clair Shores can be, get in touch with us at Axis Estate Planning. We’ll make sure that every one of your wishes is put clearly into a legally valid estate plan St. Clair Shores so that everything happens as it should.
