D<\/span>espite what you may have heard or read, there isn\u2019t one catchall estate plan that ensures your assets are passed on according your wishes upon your death.<\/p>\n Depending on your intentions and goals, there are many different avenues that your estate plan can take.<\/p>\n Some considerations include whether or not you\u2026<\/p>\n Want to distribute property<\/strong> to your children outright at your death or when your child reaches a certain age.<\/p>\n Want to have your assets held in trust<\/strong> for the lifetime of your children for their benefit to offer protection from creditors, including divorcing spouses, and sometimes protections from themselves.<\/p>\n Would like to donate to your preferred charity<\/strong>. Most often, a custom plan is needed to fulfill your intentions, limit court involvement, and reduce transfer taxes owed to federal and state governments.<\/p>\n There are several basic documents you should have for management of your assets and to appoint someone to make your healthcare decisions if you are incapacitated\u2026<\/p>\n A healthcare proxy is a document used by an individual to appoint a person to make healthcare decisions on your behalf should you be incapable of making healthcare decisions on your own.<\/p>\n A durable power of attorney is a document permitting a person, the \u201cattorney in fact,\u201d to make decisions or act on your behalf with respect to financial matters. This includes paying bills and managing investments. This durable power of attorney stays in effect when or if you become incapacitated or unable to handle matters on your own.<\/p>\n A will is a document that an individual, known as the testator (male) or testatrix (female), executes to establish how they would like their probate property to be distributed after they have passed away. The will only governs the disposition of probate property. It will not affect the disposition of non-probate property.<\/p>\n A personal representative is nominated in the will and their duty will be to manage the testator\u2019s or testatrix\u2019s estate until all probate property has been distributed. If a person dies without a will, or with a will that fails to dispose of all property, they have died \u201cintestate,\u201d and the individual\u2019s property will be disposed of according to the applicable state\u2019s intestacy statute.<\/p>\n The will is also the document where you will name guardians and conservators for any minor children.<\/p>\n There are several other documents that offer specific benefits to almost everyone, but you wouldn\u2019t be completely lost without them. These include\u2026<\/p>\n A trust is a relationship\u2014the donor gives property to the trustee to hold for the benefit of the beneficiaries. This relationship is memorialized in a document that outlines the parameters under which the trustee will hold the property for the beneficiaries.<\/p>\n A lifetime revocable trust is traditionally used to minimize estate taxes and avoid probate court. During the donor\u2019s lifetime, assets can be titled in the name of the trust and held by the trust. The LRT is revocable at any time by the donor, and the terms may be altered at any time by the donor. While the donor is alive, the LRT is what is known as a grantor trust. And any income derived by assets in the name of the trust will be attributed to the donor.<\/p>\n A trust specifically designed to hold real estate, or potentially some other specific asset. The beneficiaries of the trust have all the control. But this document converts a beneficiary\u2019s ownership of real estate into the ownership of intangible beneficial interest in the trust.<\/p>\n This allows the beneficiary to avoid probate court on their death. And it allows efficient transfer of their interest during their lifetime. A deed will not be recorded for any transfer because the transfer is of beneficial interest of the trust, not the actual property. And the trust retains ownership of the underlying real estate in the public record.<\/p>\n Irrevocable trusts are similar to the LRT described above with three key differences\u2026<\/p>\n 1. The document cannot be amended or terminated, except in rare circumstances.<\/p>\n 2. The trust obtains its own taxpayer identification number, and the trust generally will need to file its own tax return.<\/p>\n 3. The donor generally doesn\u2019t retain any interest in the irrevocable trust because transfers to the trust are meant to be gifts.<\/p>\n As always, you should consult a licensed attorney before any of the documents are drafted and any estate plan is implemented.<\/p>\n Key documents you need<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-summer-2018","category-spring-summer-2018-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7553"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7846,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553\/revisions\/7846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Basic Documents You Need<\/h3>\n
Healthcare proxy<\/h4>\n
Durable power of attorney<\/h4>\n
Will<\/h4>\n
More Documents, Not Essential, But Nice to Have<\/h3>\n
Lifetime revocable trust (LRT)<\/h4>\n
Realty (nominee) trust<\/h4>\n
Irrevocable trusts:<\/h4>\n
Matthew J. Leonard is a director at Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster<\/a>. He focuses on the areas of estate and gift planning, estate and trust administration, charitable planning, probate litigation, and business succession planning.<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"