Estate planning is simply the process of getting legal documents in place so that your chosen individuals are appointed to take care of you, your children, your assets, and your finances in the event of your death or incapacity. The process also involves naming the people you want to inherit your assets when you are gone. An “estate plan” is simply a bundle of all the documents needed to accomplish these objectives.

If you don’t currently have a will or trust, you may think you don’t have an estate plan….but you do. It’s just that the state has written it for you! All states have a default plan for your family and assets in the event of your incapacity or death, it's called intestacy. That’s the plan you have now. Estate planning is “opting out” of the default plan and putting your own wishes in place.

Unfortunately, even a simple will is still subject to the expense and delays of probate. It’s not the complexity of the document itself that cause the time and expense, it’s the probate process itself. For this reason, most of my clients choose to create a living trust instead of a will, which is designed for simplicity and to avoid the probate process completely.

However, as part of an overall, comprehensive estate plan, a special “pour-over” will is used to make sure anything noy already in the trust "pours over" into it and allows you to appoint guardians for any minor children alive at your death.

You have two options with your estate planning: a Will-based plan, or a Living Trust-based plan. The vast majority of my clients choose a Living Trust. A Living Trust is a document where you appoint a chosen individual to manage your assets should you become incapacitated and distribute them to your family at your death. It is almost always preferable to a Will because it is designed to avoid the time, expense, and publicity of probate, which a Will cannot avoid.

It comes as a surprise to many of my clients that wills do not avoid Probate Court…, in fact, a will guarantees probate!

I go over the difference between a Will and a Living Trust in depth during our Estate Planning Session. The most common question I get at the end of this session is, “Why would anybody ever do a Will?!” Ultimately, however, the decision is yours.

Probate is the court-supervised process of administering your estate upon your death. If you die without a Will, your estate must go through Probate, in open court, before all your assets can be distributed to your heirs. And if you die WITH a Will…your estate still has to go through Probate! The only way to avoid probate is with a Revocable Living Trust.

What’s so bad about Probate? Even a simple Probate can take years to complete and eats up as much as 5-7% of the estate assets in the meantime. It’s also a public proceeding that makes your Will, and seeing who gets what, available to anybody who wants to look at it.

Simply put, a Will is subject to the probate process, a Living Trust is designed to bypass it completely.

A health care proxy (Advanced Healthcare Directive) allows you to appoint someone you trust to manage your medical decisions should you be unable to do so. A living will (not to be confused with a living trust or last will and testament) allows you to make certain medical decisions regarding end-of-life decisions, ahead of time.

Your health care proxy (Advanced Healthcare Directive) includes:

• A health care power of attorney
• A declaration of a desire for a natural death
• An advance instruction for mental health treatment
• A declaration of an anatomical gift.

We include an Advanced Healthcare Directive for you and your spouse, if you are married, with every estate plan we create.

A power of attorney lets you appoint someone to manage your property in the event of your incapacity. You will name someone you trust implicitly as your “agent”. They will step into your shoes and pay your bills, file your taxes, manage your business, etc. if you cannot.

We include a power of attorney for both spouses in every estate plan we create.

No. This is the biggest myth out there. Estate planning is in no way related to how much money you have.

Estate planning is the process of putting legal documents in place that ensure your assets will go to the people you want, the way you want, when you are gone. It’s about making this as easy as possible on your loved ones during an otherwise difficult time. And we all care about that, no matter how much (or little) money we have.

It’s also about appointing people to manage your property and make health care decisions for you if you are incapacitated, something that matters to all of us regardless of wealth status.

Yes! In some ways, you need estate planning MORE than married folks. Many non-married individuals want to leave their money to charities and friends, not their closest living relative. Unfortunately, if you die without getting this in writing, your estate could end up in the hands of that distant cousin you’ve met twice. And it’s important for everyone to have a Health Care Proxy and Financial Power of Attorney.

It depends! Estate planning is not one size fits all. It’s hard for us to give you a quote without knowing more about you and your wishes. Even if you believe your situation is relatively simple, there may be nuances you are not considering.

But we do understand that cost is an important factor and that estate planning is a significant investment for many. It is our goal to be as transparent and fair as possible. For that reason, we offer flat fees as opposed to billing by the hour so that you'll know exactly what your investment will be, no surprises.

From the first hello to the Estate Planning Session and onto the final pre-signing review,  we listen and ask questions so we can truly understand your needs and wishes. We will explain every option and let you decide what you need so your wishes are carried out in the way you want when you and those you love need it most.

Finally, we will only recommend planning with us if the amount you would save by doing an estate plan is greater than our fee.

We have an easy process designed to have your trust and other estate planning documents created and signed within 4-5 weeks:

• The first step is to call our office or self-schedule a consultation from our website.
• Then you’ll have a short conversation with attorney Bill Ramos about your needs and how we would go about crafting a plan that does everything you need done. If you both agree and are comfortable working together, he’ll have Carlyn send you the Retainer Agreement and invoice.
• Once signed and paid, Carlyn will send you our customized Intake Form and a link to self-schedule a meeting with her to go over your intake form and make sure any important or missing information is addressed, then Carlyn will schedule a review session for you with Bill to review your plan to make sure everything is as you need and expect.
• Next, you’ll meet with Bill to review a draft of your plan and make any last minute edits or changes.
• Carlyn will then follow up to schedule a final meeting where you will sign your plan so it can go into effect.
• Then we follow up on an annual basis to ensure your plans stay up-to-date so it does what you expect when you need it to.

Let me start by saying what we do NOT need! We generally do NOT need account statements or tax returns. We DO need information on what kind of assets you own (house, retirement account, life insurance, etc.), their current value, and how they are titled (jointly, individually, etc.) Beyond that, we simply need answers to questions about your personal estate planning preferences, including:

• Who you would want raising your minor children if something happened to you and your spouse or partner
• Who you want to be in charge of your children’s money until they are old enough to manage it themselves
• Who you want making medical and financial decisions for you in the event of your incapacity

Don’t worry if you don’t have the answers to these questions right away! You’ll have plenty of time to think things over throughout the process.