Estate planning is about much more than just creating a Will so your assets will be divided the way you want them to be. Any estate planning lawyers will tell you that by planning your estate you are making the best decisions about your future and your family’s future in many ways. Here are several benefits of estate planning.
- You should make a Will, but a Will is only part of estate planning, but it is an important part. By ensuring your Will is legal and binding, you also ensure that your wishes about the distribution of your assets will be carried out.
- With an experienced probate lawyer to help structure your estate, taxes can be minimised so your family gets more.
- Your family won’t have to deal with administration costs that can be very expensive if your estate plan is done properly. They will have enough to cope with at that time with the emotional trauma they will feel and all the arrangements that must be made for the funeral as well as other things affecting their future.
- Estate planning also includes nominating a Power of Attorney to look after things if you are not able to. For instance, a stroke could leave you unable to communicate properly or at all. If you nominate someone you can trust to have Power of Attorney, they will be able to carry out your wishes as you have written down in your estate plan.
- In an estate plan you can also have a living Will that can explain what type of medical intervention you do or don’t want should you become too ill to tell anyone. For instance, if you are terminally ill or in pain that cannot be relieved, do you want to be revived should that be possible? Having a living Will is very important.
- You can also name a healthcare proxy who can make medical decisions for you if you cannot make them.
- An estate plan can include a trust depending on your assets. This can take care of future generations, or ensure that your children will be taken care of throughout their lives. This can be especially important for a disabled child. A charitable trust can also be set up to aid others apart from the family. Trusts can last for hundreds of years or for just a few years, depending on who it is for and what your assets are.
When you decide to create an estate plan, you will have peace of mind that you’ve taken the best care possible of your family, even when you are no longer able to do it. Even those who don’t have a great many assets will find that an estate plan can make the best of what they do have, since it usually minimises tax.