Regardless of your station in life, it’s critical that you have a full understanding of estate planning. Even if you don’t do it for yourself, it’s critical that you take the right steps to ensure the future well-being of your family.
Unfortunately, even if you have the best intentions, you could still make a mistake in regards to estate planning. And if that happens, you never know what type of impact it will have on you and your family, now and down the road.
On the plus side, if you keep the most common estate planning mistakes on your radar, it’s much easier to avoid them.
Consider the following:
1. You Put it Off
It’s easy to put off estate planning, as the process is full of decisions that you don’t necessarily want to make. However, if you continue to do this, it could harm you at some point.
Here’s why it’s so important to create an estate plan:
Creating a comprehensive estate plan is important for several reasons. Without an estate plan in place, the estate you leave behind will be considered an “intestate” estate. When you die intestate, the state intestate succession laws dictate what happens to your estate assets, completely removing your ability to decide who receives gifts from your estate.
It’s often a challenge to take the first step, but once you do everything will begin to come together.
2. You Neglect to Consider All the Details
For example, you create a will and assume that you don’t need to think about anything else. There’s typically more to estate planning than what you initially see. For example, you also need to focus on:
- Incapacity planning
- Retirement planning
- Medicaid planning
- Asset protection
Slow down, focus on all the most important details, and check them off as you move through the process.
3. You Forget to Make Changes
Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that you only have to think about estate planning once in your life. You don’t have to think about it every day, but there are sure to be times when you need to make a change. For example:
- Marriage or divorce
- The death of your spouse
- The birth of a child
- A major change to the value of your estate
When your estate plan requires a change, take immediate action.
If you’re concerned about making one or more of these estate planning mistakes, contact us to learn more about the steps you should take.
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