Looking for a St. Clair Shores Estate Planning Attorney?
Once you pass away, you don’t want your inheritance to become a source of more stress for your loved ones. Without a proper St. Clair Shores estate plan, it will be. No estate plan means that your loved ones have to endure an expensive and long legal process for a judge to dictate what happens to your inheritance. Save your loved ones the trouble by getting together with Axis Estate Planning to draw up a St. Clair Shores estate plan today. We’ll make sure that your wishes are clearly outlined in a legally valid way so that inheritance passes on easily and without trouble. Creating an estate plan takes two steps:
- Identifying your estate – First, we record all of what you can include in your estate, such as financial accounts, life insurance policies, personal property, 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.
In general, estate planners will only take into account your finances and assets. That’s okay for most people, but Axis Estate Planning includes your legacy, too. Your loved ones will want to remember you by who you were and what you believed, rather than just by money. We’ll make sure that your morals, beliefs, family history, family heirlooms, and more are included in your St. Clair Shores estate plan. Give your loved ones something with meaning to remember you by, and keep your legacy going.
What is included in a St. Clair Shores estate plan?
Depending on how much you need to include in a St. Clair Shores estate plan, there is a range of documents that can be drawn up. Every estate plan needs at least a Will, a Medical Power of Attorney, a Revocable Living Trust, and a Durable (financial) Power of Attorney. Here is what each of those documents does:
- 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 St. Clair Shores Revocable Living Trust 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.
St. Clair Shores estate planning is helpful while living, too
The main benefit of a St. Clair Shores estate plan is realized after you pass, but there are ways it can benefit you while you’re alive, too. This is mainly in the situation where you lose the ability to competently make decisions on your finances and health care. If this happens, then your estate plan kicks in. When you draw up the estate plan, you’ll designate a Medical Power of Attorney and a Financial Power of Attorney, one or two people who you trust to make decisions in your best interest. They will take over your medical and financial decisions so that you continue to get the proper medical care and your bills continue to be paid on time.
Without the help of a St. Clair Shores estate plan, the end of your life and the inheritance process after it can become very difficult. But, the experts at Axis Estate Planning are here to help you draw up a St. Clair Shores estate plan that perfectly outlines your wishes so that there is no confusion or stress. There’s no reason to leave these things up to chance, let Axis Estate Planning help you secure your future for your sake and your loved ones.
