Valentine’s Day is when we traditionally show our sweethearts how much we love and appreciate them. Often we buy gifts or go out on a special date with our “significant other.” Many times our sweethearts are our children, whom we spoil a little extra on February 14.
There are additional, more lasting ways to show your loved ones how much you care: by taking care of yourself. As an estate planner, I know that thinking through your own incapacity and passage of your estate is not about you. It’s about your family. It’s about making the inevitable business of your own passing easier on them.
(I know, I know… here we go talking about death and dying again – and on Valentine’s Day!)
Estate planning is about avoiding fights between your children regarding who is the best person to handle your money or medical decisions if you are ever incapacitated. It’s about avoiding fights over the precious, sentimental things that you own. Not to mention fights over money.
Estate planning is also about putting methods in place to protect and provide for those family members who survive you. If you have a new baby, he needs a trust for the management of the money you might leave him, and baby needs a trustee whom you trust in charge of that money. If you have an older, spendthrift child, he needs a trust for financial preservation, with a trustee to teach him money management. If your child is a busy adult, with obligations pulling on her from all directions – kids, career, home – then you can bless her with an easy, less-expensive probate upon your death, just by doing a little advance planning.
If you want to think through a gift worth well more than a box of candy, we can help.
Attorney Kendra Rey is an attorney at Hammerle Finley Law Firm, a boutique law firm offering services in estate planning, probate, guardianship, business law, litigation, and real estate. Contact her at (972) 436-9300. This article does not constitute as legal advice.
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