Do I need & Estate Planning Attorney? Yes
Estate Defined: An Estate is the amount, degree, nature and quality of a person's interest in land or other property.
When we talk about basic estate planning, we mean the following:
(i) estate planning for the cost efficient transfer of that persons estate (all a person's interest in property) upon their death. Estate planning methods include executing a basic will, basic trust or a probate avoidance living trust or inter-vivos trust and ensuring beneficiary designations are properly completed.
(ii) estate planning means preserving a person's assets when that person looses capacity. That could mean anything from making sure the mortgage is paid (home is an estate asset) or keeping a business running (a business an estate asset). Estate planning methods include powers of attorney (POA), joint accounts ect.
(iii) estate planning means planning for health decision, including life or death decisions, made upon a person's incapacity. Estate Planning methods include healthcare powers of attorney (HCPOA), Living Wills, HIPPA Authorizations & Advanced Medical Directives.
Consequently, every person needs an estate planning attorney.
Why? Because everybody dies, everybody may become incapacitated and almost everybody has some asset that they want to leave to some person they care about. Fortunately, these basic estate planning documents are not time consuming and fairly inexpensive.
See below for the 2012 Spring estate planning costs & fees estimates for two of our basic estate plan packages
How Much Does Estate Planning Cost?
The cost of estate planning is respective to the amount of work involved. If a person doesn't want to trust plan, the cost can of estate planning can be very inexpensive. Additionally, if the person wants a trust for probate avoidance purposes alone, than that person's estate plan is also relatively inexpensive.
Estate planning costs go up when we incorporate advanced asset protection or draft great detail into an estate planning document. If you want to restrict a beneficiary's access to the estate inheritance, or protect the inheritance from divorcing spouses, Medicaid, Bankruptcy or creditors, your estate planning costs begin to increase.