Wills, Trusts and Estate Planning

 A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property (estate) is to be distributed after their death and which person (executor) is to manage the property until its final distribution.

Though it has been thought a "will" historically applied only to real property, while "testament" applied only to personal property, thus giving rise to the popular title of the document as "last will and testament". However, these terms have been used interchangeably in more recent years.

 A last will and testament is one of the most important documents you can create in your lifetime. It ensures that your property gets distributed the way you want it to but also serves the purpose of instructing your family how to handle your remains as well. We often couple your will with a health care proxy for added protection. 

It is extremely important that you are as specific as possible in your will. By being specific as possible it in your estate plan, it lessens the chance of a person contesting the will and sending it into probate. This process is difficult, time consuming and expensive.

Give us a call or use the contact form and let us create your will to your specifications and tailored to your needs. 

 A trust (also known as a "living will") is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. It is often ties to your last will and testament.

The party who entrusts the right is known as the "settlor", the party to whom the right is entrusted is known as the "trustee", the party for whose benefit the property is entrusted is known as the "beneficiary", and the entrusted property itself is known as the "corpus" or more commonly "trust property".

The trust is created by a settlor, who transfers title to some or all of their property to a trustee, who then holds title to that property in trust for the benefit of the beneficiaries. The trust is governed by the terms under which it was created. It is possible for a single individual to assume the role of more than one of these parties, and for multiple individuals to share a single role. For example, in a living trust it is common for the grantor to be both a trustee and a lifetime beneficiary while naming other contingent beneficiaries.

If you are ready to set up a trust and make it part of your estate plan, give us a call and we will be more than happy to answer all your trust related and estate planning questions

In the field of medicine, a healthcare proxy “HCP” is a legal instrument with which a patient appoints an agent to legally make healthcare decisions on behalf of the patient, when the patient is incapable of making and executing the healthcare decisions stipulated in the proxy. Once the healthcare proxy is effective, the agent continues making healthcare decisions as long as the primary individual is legally competent to decide. The proxy must declare the healthcare agent who will gain durable power attorney. This document also gives notice the authority given from the principal to the agent and states the limitations of this authority.

Those over the age of 18 are allowed to have a healthcare proxy, and these documents are useful in situations that render a person unable to communicate their wishes such as being in a persistent vegetative state, having a form of dementia or an illness that takes away one's ability to effectively communicate, or being under anesthesia when a decision needs to be made. Healthcare proxies are one of three ways that surrogate decision makers are enacted, the other two being court orders and laws for the automatic succession of decision makers. In contrast to a living will, healthcare proxies do not set out possible outcomes with predetermined reactions, rather they appoint someone to carry out the wishes of an individual.

Often times the health care proxy is part of the larger estate plan, while it is a simple document the health care proxy is one of the most important. If its time to update your estate plan, contact us and we will be more than happy to answer all your estate planning questions.