15 Most Common Reasons to Do Estate Planning
- Designate who will manage your affairs if you become disabled and when you pass away.
- Plan for Medicaid and its impact on your estate if you must go into a nursing home.
- Avoid guardianship/ conservatorship, during your lifetime and probate when you pass away.
- Protect children from a prior marriage if you pass away first.
- Protect assets inherited by your heirs from lawsuits, divorces and other claims.
- Impose discipline upon children (and/or grandchildren) who may not be capable or experienced in managing money.
- Provide for special needs children and grandchildren.
- Insure that a specific portion of your estate actually gets to grandchildren, charities, etc.
- Protect a portion of your estate if you pass away first and your surviving spouse remarries.
- Address different needs of different children.
- Prevent or discourage challenges to your estate plan.
- Reward/encourage heirs who make smart life decisions, and prevent the depletion of your estate by those who do not make smart choices.
- Assure an education for children/grandchildren, despite what they (or their parents) dream of doing with the inheritance.
- “Brady-Bunch” family estate planning: assure the step-parent doesn’t spend your childrens inheritance and/or provide for a spouse by sacrificing the intended legacy for children of a prior marriage
- Pursue charitable goals you may not otherwise feel you can afford. Considerably cutting probate expenses allows you to also leave a legacy to a charitable organization you admire