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Home » What Can I Do to Help My Estate Planning Attorney?

What Can I Do to Help My Estate Planning Attorney?

May 24, 2022Estate Planning

Working with an experienced estate planning attorney is the best way to ensure that your estate plan accomplishes all your goals and that it works as intended. Your attorney will provide you with advice and guidance during the creation of your estate plan; however, there are also things you can do to help your estate planning attorney to increase the overall success of your plan. Toward that end, a Carmel estate planning attorney at Frank & Kraft explains what you can do to help your estate planning attorney.

  • Listen to – and act on — advice.  When an attorney gives a client excellent advice, and the client fails to listen and/or act on that advice it amounts to a waste of time and money for both parties. If you have an issue with your attorney’s advice speak up and discuss your issue; however, do not just ignore the advice.
  • Full disclosure.  Many of the issues that must be discussed in an estate plan are highly sensitive and extremely personal. Your estate planning attorney understands and respects this; however, your attorney cannot fully protect you and your interests if you fail to disclose all the necessary facts and information. Keep in mind that anything you tell your attorney will remain confidential because your attorney is ethically bound to keep it confidential.
  • Organize and update records. Estate planning typically involves detailed financial records and important ownership documents. Keeping those records organized and updated helps your attorney keep your estate plan organized and up to date.
  • Choose fiduciaries wisely.  Your estate planning attorney will likely end up working with one, or more, of your fiduciaries at some point. Your Executor, for example, may retain your attorney to help probate your estate. Choosing the right person for the position, preferably with the assistance of your estate planning attorney, will help everyone involved.
  • Consider sharing the details of your plan with loved ones.  If anything in your plan is likely to be controversial, or to cause conflict, consider sharing those details with loved ones now. Doing so will make everyone’s life much easier down the road.
  • Do not hide things from your attorney.  Keep in mind that your estate planning attorney cannot protect you unless he/she knows everything. Keeping assets hidden in an effort to protect them, for example, may be tempting; however, it could be a huge mistake. Your attorney may be able to legally protect those assets, but you won’t know that if you keep the existence of the assets hidden from your attorney.
  • Create a lasting relationship with your attorney.  Estate planning is a highly personal endeavor, and a lifelong one as well.  The better your relationship is with your estate planning attorney, the better your wishes and needs are likely to be reflected accurately in your estate plan. Sticking with one estate planning attorney throughout your lifetime, therefore, only makes sense.
  • Schedule routine reviews.  Your estate plan is not something that you create and then forget about from that point forward. On the contrary, an estate plan should be reviewed and revised on a regular basis. Prior to reaching retirement age, a good rule of thumb is to schedule a routine review every three to five years.
  • Update immediately when necessary.  Although a routine review is important, it can be even more important to recognize when an immediate update may be necessary because of a life event. If you decide to get divorced, for example, you should not wait until your next routine review to make changes to your estate plan. Likewise, if you decide to change something in your estate plan, don’t put off discussing the change with your attorney because life can be unpredictable.

Contact a Carmel Estate Planning Attorney

For more information, please join us for a FREE upcoming seminar. If you have additional questions or concerns about estate planning, contact an experienced Carmel estate planning attorney 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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