8 Good Reasons to Create Your Will or Trust Now

Creating a will or a trust may be something you’d rather not think about, but here are 8 good reasons to take care of it sooner rather than later.

#1 - Peace For Everyone

This is perhaps the most important aspect of estate planning.  Planning ahead provides you with peace of mind and helps ensure harmony in your family. This can be more valuable than money as far as maintaining relationships. Peace in the family will mean that people are able to work in contentment even after you are gone.  You would probably be horrified at the idea of your children or relatives fighting over your property after your death, but that could easily happen unless your wishes are clear and legally enforceable.

#2 – Provide For Your Family

Without an estate plan in place, your family may get less and it will take them longer to get it. This means your loved ones will be left in limbo and might end up without enough money to pay bills and other living expenses. It’s not uncommon for families with an unexpected death to experience severe stress due to the financial strain in the weeks, months, and years to come.

Good estate planning will make sure that your family is provided for and not left to face financial problems once you’re gone.

#3 – Keep Your Children Safe

As unpleasant as this next thought is going to be, take a minute and ask yourself what would happen to your kids if you and/or your spouse were involved in a major car accident on the way home from work tomorrow?

If you don’t have an estate plan in place, you might not like the answer to that question. The courts will have to sort out who will serve as your children’s guardian, but why leave that decision up to the courts at all?  No one would deliberately choose to have a judge decide who will raise their children without any input from the parents.  

#4 – Minimize Your Expenses

Do you know where a large chunk of money can go if you don’t have a good estate plan? Attorney’s fees and court costs.

When you die without an estate plan (and without a living trust, in particular) the courts are forced to handle everything: the distribution of your property, the guardianship of your children, and the dissolution of your business. This is known as probate, and it can get very expensive – thousands of dollars for even modest estates. That’s money your family could have used for living expenses and other bills.

#5 – Get Property To Loved Ones Quickly

Using the probate process, your family could have to wait anywhere from 3-9 months to get anything after you die.  With a good estate plan such as a living trust, your family will have access to money they need to pay monthly expenses, funeral costs, outstanding medical bills, and anything else they need right away and without delay.

#6 – Save Your Family From The Difficult Decisions

Can you imagine trying to decide when to pull the plug on a parent who is in a coma or similar condition? Or deciding how his or her remains should be handled?

Those are heartbreaking decisions that no one should have to face. You can ease this burden by thinking about it in advance and planning ahead for it. You can specify in your estate plan how you want end-of-life care to be handled and what kind of arrangements you want made for your remains. And there’s no one better to make those decisions than you.

#7 – Plan For Incapacity

Estate planning is not just about death. It’s very common for people to become incapacitated by an accident or sudden medical episode – like a stroke – that leaves them unable to manage their financial affairs.

If this happens to you, who will take care of paying your bills or managing your healthcare? A power of attorney designation for both financial and healthcare decisions can save your family a lot of time and money and make sure everything is handled according to your wishes.

#8 – Support Your Favorite Cause

You might have heard that Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) decided to join Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in leaving the vast majority of his fortune to charity instead of his family. Even if you don’t have billions of dollars to leave to charity, you can still make a difference by supporting your favorite educational, religious, or other charitable cause. Even if it’s just a hundred dollars, that money can help others and make a difference in their lives.  Without an estate plan, none of your money will go to charity.

Creating a will or a trust is something you should take care of now.  I can make it easy for you.  For more information, including pricing, visit www.kirkestateplanning.com.  Or schedule your free initial consultation with me by calling (314) 266-2649 or emailing emilykirk@kirkestateplanning.com.