By Sandra Dalton, Staff Writer
The importance of estate planning cannot be overstated. Even if you don’t feel like you have much to leave behind, you need a plan to guide your loved ones so that they don’t have to make all the decisions or possibly fight over how those decisions are made. Those who do plan, often make mistakes.
Following are three common estate planning mistakes you should avoid.
Failure to Plan for Accidents or Events That Don’t Actually Kill You
What happens if you’re in an accident that puts you in a coma temporarily and no one has the authority to pay your bills? When people think about wills and trusts and guardianship, they tend to think only about death and fail to plan for being incapacitated. You need a healthcare power of attorney so someone can make healthcare decisions for you and a durable power of attorney that designates someone to take care of your financial affairs.
Failure to Update Beneficiary Designations
Certain assets aren’t affected by your will. They are distributed to the named beneficiary on the account. It is very common for people to name a beneficiary when they open an account and then go years or decades without thinking about it. That could mean leaving assets to an ex or a dead person and failing to leave them to the people in your life who need and deserve them. Annuities, retirement accounts, and life insurance policies are just a few examples.
Thinking You Can Do it on Your Own
It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how good you are at research, you need an experienced estate planning attorney to at least review your estate plan for you and make sure everything is legal and binding, that there are no conflicts and that you haven’t left anything out. And you need to do it every few years because laws change, and a perfectly good plan today may not benefit your loved ones the way you intend it to after a few years pass.
Take care of your loved ones by avoiding estate planning mistakes. Please search this directory for an excellent estate planning law firm in your area to learn more.
