Estate Planning
Estate planning puts down on paper your thoughts and directions which will kick in if you die or become disabled. This whole process can be confusing and intimidating. This toolset will break this process into many smaller steps in order to make the “estate planning experience” far easier for you. After you have those documents in place, you will have the peace of mind of knowing that your family will be protected.
Why is an Estate Plan Important?
Help Your Estate Avoid Probate
Having the right documents and vehicles in place in your Estate Plan will help your family avoid a potentially lengthy and stressful probate process where the court determines what happens to your assets.
Prepare For Medical Conditions
In the case of a sudden or unexpected medical emergency where you might be incapacitated, your estate plan will make your intentions clear for how decisions should be made for both you and your child with special needs.
Communicate Your Wishes and Desires
An estate plan is larger than just a plan about your finances, property and assets; your estate plan will help lay out your desires for how your children with special needs should be taken care of.
Provide For Your Loved Ones
Without a directive within an estate plan, the state that you live in will determine how your personal property, insurance and any other assets will be distributed, you will have no say in how your loved ones will be taken care of, your child with special needs will have no protection or directive.
Limit Potential For Disagreements
Your estate plan will make your wishes surrounding guardianship, asset distribution and your child’s future explicit and will limit disagreements, even if family members might disagree.
What will you get from this course
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Your Revocable Living Trust divides all your assets among your beneficiaries at your death (or at the death of the survivor of you and your spouse) in whatever percentages you direct.
The shares set aside for any of your minor children will be protected for them until they reach an age you designate
The share set aside for your child with disabilities will be managed for that child’s lifetime in the “supplemental needs trust” by the “supplemental needs trustee” you select. That “supplemental needs trustee” will be in charge of investing the assets and making funds available to your child with disabilities.
Your Revocable Living Trust designates a “settlement trustee”, who you put in charge of paying bills, selling assets, filing tax returns and dividing the assets that are left.
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A Living Will/Advanced Health Care Directive indicates your wishes for certain major end-of-life decisions, such as whether you wish to be kept alive if you are brain dead, whether you want extraordinary medical care if you are in an end-stage condition, and whether you wish to donate body parts upon your death.
Your Will captures any assets that are titled in your individual name at your death and puts those assets in your Revocable Living Trust. Although it is better to title your assets so that they pass directly to the Revocable Living Trust at your death, often people fail to title assets properly. The Will assures that the assets still get put in the Revocable Living Trust, rather than pass outright to your children, which could disqualify your child with disabilities from government assistance.
Your Will designates who you wish to put in charge of settling your estate, your executor.
Your Will designates a guardian who will have physical custody of your children if you and their other parent die before the children reach age 18. The Revocable Living Trust cannot do this.
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A Medical Care Power of Attorney designates one or more decision makers to make your health care decisions if you cannot make those decisions yourself.
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A Power of Attorney designates one or more decision makers to make your financial and other decisions (including paying for health care) if you cannot make those decisions yourself.
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A HIPAA waiver allows your doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to provide information about your health care to the decision makers you have named in your Medical Power of Attorney.
FAQs
Don’t only wealthy people have an “estate?”
A lot of people think that estate planning is only for someone who is rich. Although rich people need estate planning, people of more modest means also need to leave directions to protect their family members upon their death or disability. This is especially true for parents of minor children and parents of a child of any age with disabilities.
What will Estate Planning accomplish?
Estate planning allows you to design your own directions if you become disabled or die. If you do not leave those directions, state law will control what happens upon your death or disability. This usually results in very bad consequences for those closest to you, such as:
Court interference
Loss of control over who gets your assets
Loss of privacy
Loss of eligibility for benefits for your child with disabilities
Higher costs and higher taxes
Family conflict
Delays
Creditors can reach your assets
Why this course? Can’t I just use any online site to create a Will?
Although other online sites for creating a Will may work for many Americans, families with a child with disabilities have unique estate planning needs. This course will help you put in place documents which will protect your child and your child’s benefits after your death, and probably cost less.
If I use this course to do my Estate Plan, will I still need to hire an attorney?
This course is designed to give you a basic background in the estate planning process, and to provide to you the basic documents you need to protect your family at a very reasonable cost. This course may help you organize your thoughts and provide documents to make your time with an attorney more effective and less costly. If you do not have an attorney, we may be able to recommend one or more attorneys. Although we will not address complicated estate planning needs, such as ownership of a private business, you can still use this course, but may want to consult with an attorney to address your specific situation.
How will this Estate Plan address the unique needs of my child with disabilities and those without?
Although the estate plan will address the unique issues faced by parents of children with disabilities, it is also designed to address all the needs of your entire family, both during your lifetime and after your death.
It is very important that your child with disabilities not inherit assets in your child’s name. Instead, those assets will be held under your Revocable Living Trust in a “supplemental needs trust” after your death. (This trust is also often called a “special needs trust.”) Any assets which your child inherits outright could disqualify your child from receiving government benefits, could be squandered by your child and could expose your child to people who want to take advantage of your child. This “supplemental needs trust” will protect your child from these risks, and because assets are not actually held in the “supplemental needs trust” until after your death, they are not reportable to government during your lifetime.
Click below to purchase our estate planning course - $250
