“Your obligations to your family or loved ones do not stop, even if you have already passed on. If your family, especially your children, are still heavily dependent on you, you can still provide for them through proper estate planning, even if you are no longer present.”
Delaying your estate planning is never a good idea, says The South Florida Reporter, in the new article entitled “Why Estate Planning Is So Important.” That’s because life can be full of unexpected moments and before you know it, it’s too late. Estate planning is for everyone, regardless of financial status, and especially if they have a family that is very dependent on them.
Estate planning is designed to protect your family from complications concerning your assets when you die. Many people believe that they don’t require estate planning. However, that’s not true. Estate planning is a way of making sure that all your assets will be properly taken care of by your family, if you’re no longer able to make your decisions due to incapacity or death.
Without estate planning, a court will name a person—usually a stranger—to handle your assets and finances when you die. This makes the probate process lengthy and stressful. To protect your assets after you die, you need to have an estate plan in advance. You also need to address possible state and federal taxes. Your estate plan is a way to decrease your tax burdens.
With a proper estate plan, your final wishes for your assets will be set out in a legal document. With a will or trust, all of your assets will be distributed to your beneficiaries, according to your final wishes.
This will also save your family from having to deal with the distribution of your assets, which can become very complicated without a will. There can also be family fights from the process of distributing assets without a will.
It is also important to remember that if you do create an estate plan, you’ll need to update it every once in a while—especially if there’s a significant event that happened in your life, like a birth, a death, or a move. Your estate plan should be ever-changing, since your assets and your life can also change.
It’s vital that you work with an experienced estate planning attorney, who can help you draft the legal documents that will make certain your family is taken care of after you pass away.