Take Care of Your Responsibilities and Protect Your Family

Estate Planning Tools Every estate plan is unique, however they all rely on the same tools.  Your estate plan will utilize a collection of tools that, when taken together, work to protect your interests.  Planning tools include:

Revocable Living Trust

A revocable living trust is designed to work hand-in-hand with a last will and testament. When you create a trust you give yourself the ability to more effectively, and efficiently, transfer inheritances to your family after you die.

Last Will and Testament

A last will and testament is the most basic, and one of the most essential, estate planning tools available to every capable adult in the state of California. Whether you are young, old, wealthy, married, a single parent, or anyone else, you absolutely must have a last will and testament. As time goes on in your desires change, you can update your will whenever you like. If you don’t have a will you leave it up to the laws of the state of California to determine how others will inherit your property.

Healthcare Directives

Should you find yourself in the position of not being able to make health related decisions you will need health care directives to protect your wishes. Through these directives you can choose a medical representative and state your medical choices in as much detail as you wish. As long as the directives comply with laws of California, your doctors will be legally obligated to follow your instructions.

Financial Powers of Attorney

If your plan includes only a will, but no trust, a power of attorney will generally be used to manage your affairs while you are alive and are incapacitated.  In a trust based plan, the trustee of your trust can take over management of trust assets in the event of your incapacity. In such cases, the power of attorney will be used for certain ancillary tasks as signing tax returns, communicating with companies and government agencies on your behalf, etc