We Help Our Clients Ensure Their Loved Ones Are Protected
Estate planning isn't always the easiest thing to think about. Despite this, creating a plan to account for how your loved ones will inherit your wealth can be one of the most important decisions you make during your lifetime. Dying intestate – without even a basic will – means your family is vulnerable to additional hardship and heartache after losing you in their lives.
If you don't already have an estate plan in place, or need to make adjustments to your current plan, our estate planning attorney in New Rochelle from The Browne Firm can help. Not only can your estate plan account for how your assets and property are passed down to your loved ones, but it can also predetermine important decisions concerning your end-of-life medical care. Whether you need to draft a comprehensive strategy from scratch or add to an existing plan, we're here to provide the advice and services to help you protect your loved one's interests.
Learn more about your estate planning options by reaching out to The Browne Firm for help. Call (914) 290-5622 or fill out our online contact form to get started with us today!
Creating a Will or Trust
If you want to make a plan that will pass your property and assets down on to your beneficiaries, creating a will or trust (also called a living trust) is the best means of doing so. These estate documents, however, protect your loved one's interests in your wealth in different ways. Our estate planning attorney in New Rochelle can help you understand which options may be available to you so you can make the best possible decisions for your family.
The main difference between wills and living trusts is how probate affects your estate when one or the other is in place. If you have a will in place, your estate goes through probate, which is the legal process of validating your will and settling your estate through court proceedings.
A living trust, on the other hand, is very unlikely to go through the probate process. This is because your trust, which is funded by your wealth, is signed over to a trustee's control who will likely outlive you. You can benefit entirely from your trust up until the day you pass on while leaving instructions for the trustee to pass on the remaining wealth to your beneficiaries as instructed.
It's prudent to have both a will and a trust in place. This is because certain assets or properties may not be eligible to fund a trust, and there may be such items accidentally left out of a trust. When this occurs, a will serves as a “safety net” to account for how wealth outside of your trust should be divided to avoid intestacy laws determining inheritance.
If you have more questions about this topic or your specific situation, please reach out to our estate planning attorney in New Rochelle for help.
Create Your Advanced Healthcare Directive
A comprehensive estate plan not only accounts for what happens to your belongings after you pass on, but how you're treated if you're reaching the end of your life. Your estate plan should include documents such as a living will, medical privacy forms, power of attorney, and advance healthcare directives to help your doctors and family members know your wishes in case you are unable to make decisions for yourself.
You may be incapacitated by a coma, mental illness, or degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or dementia – in cases such as these, it's difficult for family members to know what to do. You may also have certain beliefs about how your life should or should not be preserved depending upon various factors, and your advanced healthcare directive can help make these wishes known.
If you need help with planning any part of your estate strategy, please reach out to The Browne Firm for help by contacting us online.