When you are planning your estate it could be said that the overarching purpose is to make preparations that will benefit your loved ones at the time of your passing. Of course the first thing that comes to mind in this regard is the proper situation of your assets, and this is as it should be. In addition, the matter of your funeral is something to consider as well, and many people choose to make funeral preparations while they’re still alive for a couple of different reasons.
Getting back to that broad purpose of estate planning the point is to make things as easy as possible on your family members during a time when they will be experiencing a great deal of emotional upheaval. If you don’t make preparations in advance it will be up to your loved ones to make final arrangements, and this can cause a lot of stress on a number of different levels.
When you’re in an emotional state the last thing you want to do is scour the phone book or Internet for a funeral home, identify the best resource, and go through the painstaking task of making decisions without knowing exactly what the deceased would want. There are sensitive issues such as whether or not the body should be buried or cremated, the extravagance of the casket or urn, and the way that the deceased will be memorialized. As difficult as it is for one person to make these decisions, if multiple family members are involved there can be disagreements, and once again this is the last thing anyone needs under the circumstances.
When you take the time to plan your funeral before you pass away and take control of your own affairs “through the finish line” as it were, you spare your loved ones from this stressful exercise while making sure that your own preferences are honored.
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.
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