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ESTATE PLANNING
Planning For Everyone You Love And Everything You Have
Do You Really Know?​
Do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt what would happen legally and financially to you, your loved ones, your money and everything else you care about if something unexpected happened to you?
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Many people have estate plans that are outdated or incomplete. When that happens, assets can be delayed, misdirected, or subjected to an unnecessary and public court process. Others have no plan at all, which means state law decides what happens often in ways families don’t expect or want.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: The first step in estate planning isn’t signing documents. It’s understanding what would happen legally and financially under your current circumstances. Once you know that, you can decide whether the plan you have or don’t have, truly reflects your wishes and protects the people you care about.
Estate planning is an important and everlasting gift you can give you family and loved ones. So, take the first step and learn what would happen legally and financially to everyone you love and everything you own, so that you can decide what to do next.
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Procrastinating is the easiest course to take, particularly when you are trying to balance life, work and family responsibilities. However, the decision to procrastinate is also the most difficult to recover from, if you have improper or no planning in place when life’s twists and turns take control.
SHOULD WE START?
Despite what you may have heard, Estate Planning isn’t about documents, it’s about people. Each client has unique and special goals and circumstances. Your Estate Plan should address these goals and circumstances. At its best, estate planning is as useful for the living as it is for your beneficiaries after you are gone.
We know that beginning your estate plan is a BIG STEP.
Our process is designed to ensure your confidence in the planning process each step of the way, and our planning process is the perfect combination of efficiency and warmth.
Every decision is carefully reviewed with you and yet the entire process stretches out only eight weeks. You can feel confident knowing that within two months of meeting with us, your family could be totally planned for, protected and not at risk of being stuck in court or conflict if something happens to you.
STEP ONE:
HOMEWORK:
We will schedule a Family Wealth Planning Meeting (“Initial Meeting”) at a time mutually agreed upon. For this meeting to be meaningful, we believe that the estate planning process must involve joint investments by both you and us, hence you have some homework to do.
Here Is What We Ask of You: Please invest the time necessary to complete our confidential Family Wealth Inventory & Assessment (“Assessment Form”) which will help you to get clear about what you own and what you have to think about when it comes to planning for the well-being and care of your loved ones and your belongings.
We should receive this Assessment Form at last three days before the Initial Meeting, so we have time to do our homework.
STEP TWO:
THE INITIAL MEETING:
The initial meeting typically lasts approximately two hours. If you are working together with a spouse or a partner, we ask that both of you attend the Initial Meeting.
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The purpose for the Family Wealth Planning Session is to get to know each other, and we have two goals:
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You will teach us about you, your intended beneficiaries, and your goals, desires, and concerns.
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In turn, we will teach you about estate planning, answer your questions, and make suggestions for you to consider.
We will proceed with your estate plan only when both you and we feel that we will be able to work together effectively to achieve meaningful results.
Once we know what you wish to accomplish, and which options you feel are best for you and your beneficiaries, we will design an estate plan together that will best suit the needs of your family. At the conclusion of the Initial Meeting, we will provide you with an Engagement Agreement describing the services we will provide and the total fixed cost of our services
STEP THREE:
THE SIGNING MEETING:
First, we will review with you your Estate Plan and other estate planning documents we prepared. At the conclusion of the review, you will sign your estate planning documents if they reflect your wishes.
Second, if your Estate Documents include a Trust, we will review with you what you need to do to fund the Trust. You see, creating your Trust is just the first part of the Estate Planning process. After you sign your Trust document, the next step is funding it.
Funding your trust is the process of transferring ownership of your assets from you to your trust. To do this, you physically change the titles from your individual name (or joint names) to the name of your trust. Your Trust can only control the assets you put into it. An asset not transferred to the trust is not owned by the trust and will be subject to probate (unless you’ve used another technique to avoid probate).
We will guide you through the funding process and provide you with the necessary information and documentation to effectively complete the funding of you trust.
STEP FOUR:
THE FINAL MEETING
At the final meeting you will receive all the original estate planning documents together with additional information and instructions. We will check the status on funding and address any questions or concerns you may have at that time.
STEP FIVE:
THIS IS NOT THE END
After you take your estate planning binder home with you, the maintenance phase of your plan will begin.
At no additional charge we will review your plan at least every three years and keep you informed about changes in the law and other issues that affect your family and your wealth.
Finally, we are always here for you and we do not charge you for phone calls or emails.
