Padania Law Firm

You've worked hard and sacrificed to provide for the people in your life. They are your "why." I once heard estate planning described as a legal set of babysitter instructions on how we want things handled if we're unable to do so ourselves. Our loved ones deserve and often need that kind of mindful guidance.

An attorney I learned from early in my career described it this way: Estate planning is like designing a set of babysitter instructions on how we want things handled if we become incapacitated or die. If you've ever written or seen a set of babysitter instructions, you know they're pretty specific.

An attorney I learned from early in my career described a living trust as being like a bucket. You take your assets and put them in your bucket (trust). While you are alive and well you get to hold and control your bucket. You can put new property in, take it out, sell it, or use it however you see fit (just as you do now).

Probate is the legal court process necessary to recognize a person's death and administer their estate. If steps are not taken during a person's lifetime to avoid probate, it is a necessary one to wrap up a deceased person's affairs. Probate is quite a process indeed.

As you can see from the list of steps above, it involves notifying all beneficiaries under a will, all "default" heirs under state law (even if there is a will, these potential default heirs still get notified and can come forward), notifying known creditors, publishing notices of death in a local newspaper of general circulation, inventorying and appraising assets, and so on.

The ideal outcome is to optimize the estate plan to avoid or reduce the transfer taxes following a death, keep the annual property tax bill as low as possible when real estate is transferred following a death, and enable assets to receive a step-up in basis so that, if property is sold following a death, relatively little (if any) Capital Gains Taxes need to be paid.