When you work with an estate planning lawyer, it can be helpful to get your ducks lined up in a row as neatly as possible. Follow these four tips to make life a bit easy for both you and your estate planning attorney.
Make Contact With Beneficiaries an Ongoing Thing
One of the biggest drains on time for an estate planning lawyer is tracking down beneficiaries. You can preserve more of the money that will go to your estate by taking this burden off of your attorney.
Contact beneficiaries ask them to provide you with information that will make it easier to stay in touch with them, such as phone numbers, mailing addresses, and social media account handles. Likewise, ask them to stay in touch with you. Provide them with the contact information for your estate planning attorney, too, so they can reach out to update their contact information.
Minimize What Goes Into the Estate
There are a lot of legal vehicles that can direct money to people you care about without exposing them to the estate transfer process. One of the simplest solutions to this is to provide gifts while you're still alive. Another solution is to set up payable-upon-death benefits for things like checking and savings accounts so proceeds will be directly paid to beneficiaries upon presentation of a valid death certificate. You may also be able to set up a trust that will take on some assets and money upon your passing.
Keep Your Documents Up-to-Date
One of the fastest ways to invalidate a will is to prove that it is irrelevant. Your best shot at avoiding this issue is to make sure all your documentation is regularly updated. Even if you don't think there have been big changes recently in your life, schedule a meeting with your estate planning lawyer to go through things item-by-item. You may be surprised how some problems just aren't on your radar.
Provide Copies of All Relevant Paperwork
Life is about paperwork, and that means holding onto titles for things like cars and houses. If you have brokerage or retirement accounts, you'll want to keep tabs on the paperwork for those, too. Generally, if it's something you think of as either an asset or a liability, there's a good chance you should have copies of the paperwork accompanying it. Ask your estate planning attorney for more details about what paperwork will be required to distribute assets and pay liabilities.
Contact a site like https://www.linskylaw.com to learn more.
Share8 May 2020
