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Home » Considering Your Family’s Needs in Your Estate Plan

Considering Your Family’s Needs in Your Estate Plan

March 9, 2021Estate Planning

Indianapolis estate planning attorneys

Creating a comprehensive estate plan will likely be one of the most important endeavors you undertake over the course of your lifetime. When properly drafted and executed, an estate plan will protect you and your loved ones while you are alive, help protect and grow your assets, and provide for your family when you are gone. Estate planning is also a highly personal process that must take the needs of you and your loved ones into account. The Indianapolis estate planning attorneys at Frank & Kraft offer guidance on creating an estate plan that takes your family’s needs into account.

Estate Planning Basics

Although your finished estate plan should be unique, there are some basic estate planning tools and strategies that apply to most estate plans. As such, it is usually wise to start with some of those tools and strategies. Your Last Will and Testament can serve as your primary tool for distributing your estate plan; however, many people choose to use a trust because of the additional benefits a trust offers. Your Will allows you to make general and specific gifts, appoint someone to oversee the administration for your estate, and nominate a Guardian for your minor children if one is ever needed. A trust, however, allows your estate to limit, if not avoid entirely, exposure to the probate process. A trust also lets you stagger the distribution of assets to beneficiaries and can be modified easily throughout the course of your lifetime. If you are the parents of minor children, one of the best reasons to use a trust is the simple fact that your minor children cannot inherit directly from your estate. Instead, someone must manage the inheritance you leave for them until they reach the age of majority. By placing those assets in a trust, you choose who will manage them and the terms under which they are ultimately distributed.

Advanced Estate Planning – Tailoring Your Plan to Your Family

Once you have decided on a basic tool for distributing your estate assets, you will need to consider expanding and growing your estate plan to meet the unique needs of your family. To do that, think about the following questions:

  1. Is your estate likely to be large enough that you need to worry about gift and estate taxes?
  2. Do you have a child with special needs that you need to consider?
  3. Are you a business owner?
  4. Are there any specific threats to your assets that you are worried about?
  5. Who do you want in fiduciary positions within your estate plan?
  6. Who do you want to make health care decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself?
  7. Who do you want to control your assets if you cannot manage them yourself?
  8. Do you have long-term care insurance?
  9. Do you have strong beliefs and/or wishes with regard to end of life medical care?
  10. How do you want your body handled after your death?

You will likely have additional questions you need to answer, but these will get you started tailoring an advanced estate plan to your family’s needs. For example, if estate taxes will be an issue, you need to get started early on with tax avoidance strategies in your plan. Special needs planning, business succession planning, and Medicaid planning components may need to be added to your estate plan if any, or all, are warranted. To ensure that your wishes are honored, you may need to execute an advance directive and/or include funeral planning in your estate plan. Finally, incapacity planning and asset protection strategies are commonly included in an advanced estate plan to ensure that your assets are protected and that there are no surprises in the event of your incapacity at any point during your lifetime. To ensure that your estate plan reflects the needs of your family, be sure to work closely with an experienced estate planning attorney when you create your plan as well as any time you need to revise your plan.

Contact Indianapolis Estate Planning Attorneys

For more information, please join us for an upcoming FREE seminar. If you have additional questions or concerns about estate planning, contact the experienced Indianapolis estate planning attorneys at Frank & Kraft by calling (317) 684-1100 to schedule an appointment.

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Paul A. Kraft, Estate Planning Attorney
Paul A. Kraft, Estate Planning Attorney
Paul Kraft is Co-Founder and the senior Principal of Frank & Kraft, one of the leading law firms in Indiana in the area of estate planning as well as business and tax planning.

Mr. Kraft assists clients primarily in the areas of estate planning and administration, Medicaid planning, federal and state taxation, real estate and corporate law, bringing the added perspective of an accounting background to his work.
Paul A. Kraft, Estate Planning Attorney
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For many people, the primary motivation for creating an estate plan is the desire to provide for loved ones in the event of death. Along with ensuring that your estate assets are passed down to your designated beneficiaries, a well thought out estate plan can also help make sure your beneficiaries receive those assets as soon after your death as possible. As the Indianapolis estate planning attorneys at Frank & Kraft explain, making use of the Indiana Transfer on Death Property Act is one way to transfer assets quickly after your death. The Problem with Probate If you have a spouse, children, parents, or other loved ones who financially depend on you, an important estate planning goal is to ensure that your loved ones have access to much-needed assets as soon as possible after you are gone. Unfortunately, probate can drag out the time it takes for beneficiaries to receive assets. Probate is the legal process that is often required following a death. While the ultimate goal of probate is to transfer assets to beneficiaries and/or heirs of the estate, several steps must be completed first. For example, creditors of the estate must be notified and provided with the opportunity to file claims against the estate. Any challenges to the validity of the Will must also be litigated before assets can be released. It can take months, even years, for assets to finally be released to the new owners if those assets have to go through probate. One of the many estate planning strategies available to help your estate avoid probate in the State of Indiana is the use of Transfer on Death Property Act. What Is the Indiana Transfer on Death Property Act? The Transfer on Death Property Act (TDPA) can be found at Indiana Code 32-17-14 et. seq. The overall purpose of the TDPA is to allow the owner of real property to transfer his/her legal interest in that property to a designated beneficiary or beneficiaries at the time of death. When interest in property is transferred using the TDPA the property does not have to go through probate, meaning the beneficiary takes ownership of the property immediately following the death of the previous owner. Because people are often familiar with the “Payable on Death (POD)” option offered on financial accounts, it may be beneficial to think of a transfer on death property deed as similar to a POD designation on a bank account. When you designate a bank account, for example as a POD account you name a beneficiary. Immediately after your death, ownership of the bank accounts legally transfers to the beneficiary without the need for legal action. It is important to note that with a TOD deed or a POD account, the designated beneficiary has no legal ownership interest in the asset prior to the death of the owner. This is the primary difference between owning assets jointly and a TOD/POD designation. When you jointly own property or other assets, the co-owner has a present legal ownership interest in the asset. For example, if you and your spouse own real property jointly with rights of survivorship, your ownership interest in the property will automatically transfer to your spouse upon your death, just as with a TOD deed; however, your spouse also has an equal ownership interest in the property while you are alive. If you used a Transfer on Death deed instead of joint ownership, your ownership interest in the property would pass to your spouse upon your death; however, he/she would have no legal ownership interest in the property while you are alive. For a Transfer on Death deed to be valid, it must be executed by the owner of the real property, or their legal representative, and be recorded in the county where the real property is located. Upon the death of the property owner, the designated beneficiary takes legal ownership of the property without the need for the property to pass through probate. Contact Indianapolis Estate Planning Attorneys For more information, please join us for an upcoming FREE seminar. If you have additional questions or concerns about how to incorporate the Indiana Transfer on Death Property Act into your estate plan, contact the experienced Indianapolis estate planning attorneys at Frank & Kraft by calling (317) 684-1100 to schedule an appointment.
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