Palm Harbor Retirees
After working for most if not all of your adult life, you’re finally retired. This is an exciting milestone, full of possibilities. It’s also the ideal time to visit a Palm Harbor estate planning lawyer. Your lawyer will make sure your affairs are in order so you can enjoy retirement to the fullest. Go over some of the ways your estate planning attorney can help you as you transition to this new stage of life.
Review Your Will
Has it been a long time since your estate planning attorney reviewed your will? A lot has likely happened since you drafted it, so have your attorney look over it. You might realize that you need to make a few changes. For instance, have you welcomed grandchildren into the world since you created your will? If so, you likely want to leave them part of your estate. Even if you haven’t experienced any significant life changes, it’s still a good time to look over your will to make sure everything is in order. One of the biggest problems that we see is failing to update documents where a beneficiary or a named personal representative has died. Just like your car needs maintenance or you need to see your doctor for an annual checkup, you need to review your plan to make sure it will work when you need it.
Create and Fund a Trust
Now that you’re retired, you’re likely thinking about what you will leave to your children and other family members. Your Palm Harbor estate planning attorney can help you create and fund an irrevocable or revocable trust.
A trust allows you to move property out of your estate. Once the property is in the trust, it doesn’t have to go through probate before it’s passed down to your beneficiaries.
Have Advance Directives in Place
You might have fun and relaxing years ahead. However, you could eventually become incapacitated at any time. You don’t want to put an undue burden on your family, so it’s important to have advanced directives in place.
Your Palm Harbor estate planning lawyer can draft a living will on your behalf. You can use this document to outline the type of care you want to receive if you cannot make decisions. For instance, you can choose if you want to receive a feeding tube or not.
The attorney can also help you choose a health care surrogate. Your surrogate will make medical decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself.
A power of attorney is also a crucial advanced directive. The designated person will handle your financial accounts if you become incapacitated.
Your attorney can even help you designate a pre-need guardian. This person will take over your care if you’re incapacitated.
By having these documents in place, your family won’t have to petition the court if you cannot care for yourself. This will remove some of the stress and anxiety that comes with caring for aging family members.
You want to make the most out of your life during your golden years. That’s much easier to do after visiting a Palm Harbor estate planning attorney. With the right documents in place, you’ll have peace of mind, making it easy to live life to the fullest.
