Estate planning is a process of making many important choices about your future and your loved ones. It involves what happens to your assets when you’re alive or dead, whether you want to share your assets with your relatives, children or spouse, who takes over making such important decisions for you in cases of mental incapacity and eventually transfer of property ownership.
These plans can only be presented, documented and implemented in wills and testament, living trust, advance medical directives and lastly financial power of attorney also known as durable power of attorney.
About 60% adult wait till later to plan estate- don’t be one them.
Because of its seemingly complicated aspect, many people refrain from making an estate plan. There are many forms to fill, papers to make, and laws to follow, and some busy people hardly have time even to sit down and think about what happens to their estate and hard-earned life if sudden death, accident or tragedy occurs. Some are also afraid to talk of death itself, and refuse to prepare for it. However with the help of an estate lawyer in Bergen County, your estate plans would be made much easier.
Consequences of not making estate plans.
It’s unfortunate that some people like the late famous U.S. rock star, Prince Rogers Nelson, still don’t ask themselves these outstanding questions about estate planning. Prince died at 57 on April 21, 2016, leaving no will or trust to express his wishes on how he wanted his properties treated when he died. It’s even more shocking given that he was in active negotiations with several legal practitioners and one would think he had a grand estate scheme in place to take care of all the money he’d accumulated during his lifetime. No matter the reason, dying for your living loved ones can be very painful.
Your estate becomes intestate
When you leave this world without writing a will or trust, two very important and influential property planning documents, you clearly say you don’t know what’s happening to your estate or who assumes ownership of it. When a person dies, his or her wishes for their assets are supposed to be recorded and these wishes will be reviewed in court through a legal procedure known as probate. When there is no will or trust, the estate is considered “intestate.” An intestate estate is one that will be treated according to intestacy laws because there is no will or trust in place. In most jurisdictions, intestacy laws allocate the estate to the deceased’s nearest living blood relatives (spouse and children if alive). What if you had a cousin, brother, or niece more deserving of inheriting your estate? If you don’t leave a will to protect their interest, nothing goes to them.
You have no voice
You may desire to give your last minor child the larger portion of your property or you may wish to make donations to charity. When you do not incorporate these wishes into your estate plan, then when you die your voice is completely gone. Your will and trust should have been your voice after your death but so long there is no such document, you have no say in where your assets go. If you had no surviving spouse or kids, then your parents or siblings (who would probably be less deserving) would inherit your estate, according to estate laws of the state where you lived.
Contact our Best Estate planning lawyer Bergen County today.
An estate planning lawyer is pivotal to making well informed decisions that would definitely result into making solid estate plans.
Planning with our estate lawyer is the only way to ensure all appropriate formalities are with proper protocol. With this, you stand at better chances of achieving your goals of estate plans with its adequate execution. On the other hand, doing it yourself option may leave you and your loved ones to chances of revoked, invalid and void estate plan documents.
With the wellbeing of you and your loved ones at risk and safety of your assets in question, is preparing estate plans yourself worth the risk? Contact our estate planning lawyer Bergen County today.