Protecting Your Estate Plan in Uncertain Times

With Fall arriving and the Holiday Season just around the corner, now is a good time to think about your estate plan.

Protecting Your Estate Plan

• Assets: Any assets in your name may be subject to probate, including financial accounts, real estate, and other investments. You should title these assets in a Living Trust.
• Beneficiaries: Certain low-balance accounts, such as your checking and savings accounts, can remain in your name, but you should name a beneficiary on each account. This person should never be a minor or a person with a disability. 
• Retirement accounts: Your employment benefits and IRAs always use beneficiary designations and must be titled carefully. Funds for minor beneficiaries will be held in probate until age 18, then turned over to them, two undesirable outcomes. You can name a Living Trust as beneficiary to avoid probate.

Changes to Your Estate Plan

John Lennon had it right when he sang, “Life is what happens to us when we are busy making other plans.”

Changes might happen suddenly, or your plans might drift over time. An estate plan should be consistent with the changes in your life. 

Changes to a current estate plan include beneficiaries, trustees, health, wealth, asset acquisitions, change in residence, and anything else that might affect your intentions.

Whether it’s a setback or an advancement in your life, you need an up-to-date estate plan to reflect your wishes.

Storage of Your Estate Plan 

When you become our client, you have free lifetime access to your digital estate plan documents in your MyCase portal. Your storage capacity is unlimited and encrypted for your security.

In addition to your estate plan documents, you may safely upload all your important documents, including insurance policies and current asset inventory. 

Store the original signed paper estate plan documents in a fireproof safe, never in a safety deposit box.  

Stay Healthy and Safe  

The Holiday Season can be a blur of activity and bring with it stress and unexpected events. 

If you are not protected as you wish, please contact us today.

Please stay healthy and safe!

Advantages of a Living Trust

• A Will requires probate. No one can legally sign your name. Therefore, all assets in your name are subject to probate, which typically takes 18 months and can be costly.
• A Living Trust avoids Probate.
• Your financial accounts, life insurance policies, and deferred compensation accounts can name your Living Trust as beneficiary, subject to essential tax considerations.
• A Living Trust estate plan includes Health Care and Financial Power of Attorney documents. It also consists of a Last Will and Testament.
• A Will is necessary for guardianship of minor children. It also helps transfer assets out of probate.
• A Living Trust includes a No-Contest provision and beneficiary Asset-Protection clauses.

If you have questions about Living Trusts or other concerns, please contact us today for more information or visit Tuohy Law Offices.

Tom Tuohy founded Tuohy Law Offices.

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TomTuohy.com
312-559-8400
17W220 22nd Street  
Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, 60181

This blog entry is for information purposes only. Therefore, it is not legal advice. Please do not use this blog as legal advice, which turns on specific facts and laws in particular jurisdictions. No reader of this blog should act or refrain from acting based on any information included in or accessible through this blog without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer licensed in the reader’s state, country, or other applicable licensing jurisdiction.