Estate Planning
Estate planning comprises a meticulous process that undertakes planning for situations where a person wouldn’t be able to make their own decisions due to a disability or in the case of their passing. The term estate refers to the property one might own; both tangible and intangible. Your property could be hard cash, bank accounts, property, cars, jewelry, insurance, retirement, investments, savings, etc.
Bequeathing assets to heirs / beneficiaries or an institution and planning for incapacity remain main reasons for planning. However, that’s not all estate planning is limited to. Under this umbrella term, there are various other details that can be defined and elaborated.
Estate planning allows you to:
- Protect assets
- Medicaid planning
- Designate a guardian for a minor child
- Designate a healthcare proxy that can make medical decisions on your behalf
- Use it for Medicaid planning for long-term care
- Document end-of-life preferences
You also decide on a power of attorney that can make financial decisions and carry out tasks such as paying bills, settling debt, legal or business decisions, and manage an investment portfolio. When carried out with an estate planning attorney, it can be used to reduce or eliminate taxes.
Here you’ll find yourself perusing through a plethora of articles that could be your resource when you’re learning what planning is all about. You can begin by understanding the bare bones of planning and make your way up, studying different types of planning tools, what mistakes to avoid, what myths to not believe, and more.
The previous article gave us an idea of how to resolve estate planning issues and how to value the house before selling it. This part looks at the next steps. Perform a Home Inspection Tidbit Did you know that if a home review uncovers problems with the house, the buyer might lose interest in your…
When you are working, you get to set up a retirement account that will assist you to live well after you retire from active work. The retirement account is ideal for both office workers and small business owners. Some of the common accounts include the IRA and the 401(k) accounts. Having a retirement plan gives…
When planning your estate, reality remains that the worth of your assets changes with time. By the time you are done with the estate plan, the value might have shifted up or down. This is the reason you need business valuation services. When you handle business valuation using an expert, you are sure that the…
In the last part of this series on estate planning, we look at the other ways to sell off the house successfully. Tidbit The number of houses that were sold in 2019 is 12.4 percent more compared to the previous year. Meaning more and more people are opting to sell their homes. Selling to an…
Statistics show that more than 80 percent of people have homeowners insurance. This means that the house you inherit most likely has an existing insurance policy. After you determine the mortgage and other debts on the property, you can now go ahead to see if your parents had an insurance policy on the house, and…
Scenario When her parents died, Anne received all the property as the sole heir. Since she was busy, she failed to notice that the mortgage was accruing, only for the house to be repossessed by the company after a few years. It happens, especially when estate planning isn’t in your mind. This part of the…
Scenario When martin inherited his parents’ house as stipulated in the will, he faced a lot of resistance from his elder brother and this turned ugly when the brother attempted to auction off the house. That was three years ago, and after several court battles later, the house is still uninhabited. Martin hasn’t been on…
Scenario Ignatius was surprised that his parents had given him their home as an inheritance. Being a drifter, he didn’t expect to get anything from the will. He only had one thing on his mind – sell the house and use the proceeds to explore the world. However, he didn’t know where to start, because…
Statistics show that only 30 percent of businesses make it through the second generation of ownership. This can be attributed to poor succession planning. As a businessperson, your life revolves around the business. However, have you ever stopped to wonder what will happen to your business when you can’t make essential decisions anymore? Apart from…
Studies show that the number of people filing for bankruptcy is still high, even with improvement in economy. Say you are planning your estate, and then you decide to declare bankruptcy, what transpires after this? Do you shelve it or do you still proceed? What if your kid declares bankruptcy when you are busy coming…