4 Ways Estate Planning Can Benefit Your Family

Estate planning refers to the process of making the necessary arrangements with your estate attorney, so all your assets get to be passed on to the intended recipients upon your demise. Your estate can include land properties, jewelry, bank accounts, insurance, investments, and other items of value. The more valued items you have, the more pressing is the need to have an estate plan.

You may not think you need it right now, but estate planning is a worth-it process that translates to benefits for your entire family. Death is certain for everybody, but no one knows for certain when it'll come. And when you want to protect your family from that circumstance, you’ll need to be prepared through steps like estate planning. You can understand more about its details and intricacies by going through the Weiner Legacy Law Website and others.

In this article, you’ll come across the ways estate planning can benefit your family, convincing you that it’s a process important for everyone with assets.

1. It Enables You To Provide For Your Family In Your Absence

When you don’t have an estate plan, this means everything you own today in your name is left frozen upon your death. Before your family can have ownership over those assets or inherit it, certain legal processes will first have to ensue. While these are necessary for your family members to own your properties, there’s a caveat to it. Those legal processes can be costly.

This means that what you had at the time of your death may no longer be the same once transmitted to your family members. The value will be significantly reduced as your estate will now be subject to fees relating to your death like estate taxes and other transfer fees.

You won’t have to worry about your family being in financial limbo just to inherit what you’ve left behind. Good estate planning can give you that assurance of your family’s financial stability.

2. It Minimizes The Need For Probate

In connection with the second point above, the probate process happens when you don’t have an estate plan comprising a will. This refers to the process done by the court to ensure all assets owned by you or the decedent are distributed properly according to a legal mandate. The downside to this process is it can be long and costly.

For starters, notice has to be given to all interested parties to your assets. This doesn’t just include your family members but also creditors. If you have assets subject to more than one geographical jurisdiction, the probate process will even be longer and more expensive. On average, it can take as long as six months to two years.

To avoid inflicting on your family all the stress that comes along with probate, the estate planning process is called for. You can create a revocable living trust, and this doesn’t go through probate. With a revocable living trust, the grantor is the trustee, with full access to the assets subject of the trust.

3. It Keeps Your Children Out Of Child Protection Services

This benefit applies just in case a negative event happens and you and your spouse’s life are in danger. If you’re a single parent, this concern becomes even all the more pressing. For instance, if you both meet a life-endangering accident, what happens to your children?

The starting point is usually that your children are going to be placed in child protection services. This is necessary before the court can determine to which relative the children are best under the care of.

To avoid this situation from happening, you can sort out who gets care of your children as your guardian through estate planning. Doing so is the best option as it’s you who can best determine the most appropriate family member whom you trust enough that your children are going to be in good hands. Why leave this matter to the court when you can be proactive and make that decision yourself?

4. It Ensures Your Family Can Continue The Way Of Life You Built For

This situation is all-too-familiar. When the parents or the breadwinner passes on, the children are left scrambling how to carry on with their life. It's often the case that the standard of living gets lower and the family now can’t live the life they’re once accustomed to, in the absence of sound financial planning. This situation can become a lot more despairing when you still have minor children who have a long way to go before they become professionals who can fend for themselves.

To prevent that, estate planning is key. It enables you to leave behind all the necessary orders relating to the processing of your insurance policy and other financial assets to give your family what they need.

Conclusion

In essence, estate planning is like leaving a legacy to your loved ones. When you’re still living, you have peace of mind that upon your demise, your loved ones receive what they ought to. All those years of working hard to amass assets simply won’t go down the drain.

When you’ve successfully gone through the process of estate planning, all your wishes are carried out by your legal team and those you’ve left behind. As you can see, estate planning isn’t reserved only for the wealthy. As long as you have assets to divide among your loved ones, it’s a process that’s called for while you're still young and able.