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4 Tips for a Flourishing Estate Plan “Garden”

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As every good gardener knows, preparation is key. If you put in hard work early in the season, you can sit back and watch it flourish with only a little upkeep. Estate planning is very similar! Putting in the work now, so you can reap the benefits later:

  1. Plant the Seed: Get Your Documents DonePlanting the seed is the equivalent to getting your essential legal documents done. You want to begin your process by establishing your power of attorney, your healthcare proxy, and your HIPAA release. The power of attorney allows you to name the people you want to make legal and financial decisions should you become incapacitated. The health care proxy allows you to name the people to make health care decisions for you should you become incapacitated. The HIPPA Release grants authorization for the named individuals to have access to your medical information. With these seeds “sown”, you have laid the grown work for your garden.
  2. Water the Seed, Provide Sunshine, and Weed out the Bad Stuff: Check Your PlanMaintenance is crucial to gardening, just as it is with estate planning. You should keep up with your estate plan by checking in every so often, especially after major life events; Getting married, buying a new house, and having children can have major changes in your estate plan. Continue to nurture your estate plan by adding new documents, editing past decisions, and ensuring your plans reflect your current wishes. You want to ensure the agents named in your documents reflect your current wishes. Most people forget who their listed agents are!
  3. Create a Comfortable, Healthy Environment: Let others know their partYour garden should be a place of peace and comfort, not anxiety. Make sure that everyone involved your estate plan is comfortable with their positions. Taking steps to explain the plans and get everyone on the same page now helps prepare a healthy environment in the future for you and your loved ones. This step involves make sure you express your health care wishes clearly, letting people know where you keep your estate planning documents, give copies of your Health Care Proxy and HIPAA release to your doctors, and give copies of your power of attorney to your financial advisers and put it on records at your banks.
  4. Prepare for an Easy Harvest: Your Estate Plan will do the work for youOnce you have your Estate Plan in place and maintained it, when you pass away, it will leave behind a nourishing garden for your loved ones. By taking steps to keep your estate plan clear of the probate courts and reducing your estate taxes as much as possible, allows for a seamless transition. You can be confident that the transition of your estate will leave little work for your loved ones other than to reap the benefits

Spring is the time to plant new seeds and watch them blossom into something beautiful and nourishing for your family. Come into Ladimer Law today to talk with an estate attorney to start growing your garden, one step at a time.

Estate Administration