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Estate planning provides value to a majority of Americans, regardless of income. Yet, many individuals aren’t properly protecting themselves. Estate-planning attorneys have the ability to change this trend and help clients prepare for the future. Proper estate planning can help people across the wealth spectrum achieve numerous goals, including ensuring homes are transferred to designated beneficiaries, keeping businesses in family hands. or protecting family assets in the case of eventual divorce.
The immediate and most obvious benefits of an estate plan are financial in nature. However, there are many other, non-financial benefits. It can help your clients designate a guardian for their children or pets and even protect nontraditional assets like a record or stamp collection. It can also help maintain privacy since trusts aren’t public record.
Perhaps most importantly, an estate plan can provide peace of mind by eliminating many what-if scenarios from people’s minds. This reassurance can be priceless, especially for parents of minor children and homeowners.
Wills can be the best estate-planning tool for certain clients, but that’s not always the case. In fact, many Americans don’t know whether they need a will or trust. According to WealthCounsel’s survey, 47 percent of Americans consider a trust to be the better option, while 53 percent believe that a will would best do the job.
Attorneys must convey there are benefits to both wills and trusts. What’s right for one client might not be right for another. A will is a legal document that can help clients designate who will receive their assets after death or name guardians for their children. However, wills don’t avoid the probate process. They also become public record during probate and might reveal personal details that clients would rather keep confidential.
Trusts, on the other hand, become valid on execution. On death, the assets in the trust are passed directly to a trustee, avoiding the probate process. Trusts then don’t become part of the public record either.
Millennials settle down later and wait longer to consider estate planning than other generations have. However, this “young” generation is growing up fast, and for a large segment of it, it’s time to create a will or trust. Spouses, partners, parents and homeowners all have reason to consider estate plans, regardless of their age or income.
There’s an added incentive for millennials as well, because their parents and grandparents—baby boomers—are expected to transfer $30 trillion over the coming decades, according to CNBC. That means millions of young adults stand to inherit large sums of money.
Contrary to popular belief, heirs aren’t always responsible for settling the debts of deceased family members. Any amount owed to creditors is settled by the deceased’s estate during probate. However, the debt doesn’t extend beyond the estate. If the estate doesn’t hold enough assets to satisfy creditors, the debt ends.
That doesn’t mean beneficiaries totally escape the impact of debt after death. The estate’s responsibility for debt means beneficiaries might not receive the full amount intended and miss out on expected distributions. Setting up an irrevocable trust can help eliminate this problem for clients, because once the trust is established, the creator no longer legally owns the assets used to fund it and can no longer control how the assets are distributed.
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