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Working with our clients.
| Do you need immediate help with an accounting or tax questions? Are you considering
making a financial gift and want to know the impact it may have on your estate? Just call
a professional at Carneiro, Chumney & Co. Over 80 years of service tells you that we are
client focused and responsive! We don’t just tell you that we offer excellent client service,
we do it every day.
If you want the level of service that the rest of our clients have received for the last 80
years - contact us.
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| “How do I know if I need to make an estate plan?”
Surprisingly few people see the need for an estate plan. Unfortunately, most interpret
“estate” as some amount of assets more that what they have. So heres how to decide:
The first place to start is to take a look at your family situation. If it fits into one or more of
the following personal “red flag” categories, then, regardless of your net worth, you need
an estate plan.
You have minor children. When it comes to minor children, there’s no time like the present
to start making your plan. There are two areas that need to be addressed when planning
for your children in the event of an untimely death: Who will take care of the children until
they become adults, and how their care and education will be paid for until they become
adults. Without a plan, a judge will decide these important matters.
You have problem children or other beneficiaries. Are you concerned about a child or
other beneficiary squandering their inheritance, or perhaps being unduly influenced by
an overbearing spouse after your death? Or how about a beneficiary losing their inheritance
in an ugly divorce or lawsuit? These concerns can be addressed in your estate plan.
You have a disabled child or other beneficiary. Regardless of the value of your estate, you
must put a plan in place for a disabled child or other beneficiary. Otherwise, the beneficiary
will lose their government benefits and instead your estate will be depleted to pay for
the beneficiary’s care.
You don’t have any children. This is the group I find the most difficult to plan for since they
usually don’t have any “natural” objects of their affection. The bottom line is that without a
plan, the intestacy laws of the state where you live at the time of your death will make a
plan for you, and in most cases it won’t be the plan you would have chosen for yourself
had you taken the time to make a plan.
You’re in a second (or later) marriage and/or have a blended family. If there is one group
in desperate need of estate planning, it’s couples involved in second marriages with blended
families. There are all sorts of pitfalls and traps for these couples, ranging from failing to
understand the state laws which prevent one spouse from disinheriting the other (called
“elective share” laws), to improperly titling assets so that one spouse’s children inherit
everything and the other spouse’s children get nothing. Planning now will prevent resentment
and costly lawsuits later.
Your spouse has recently died. If you and your spouse had all of your assets jointly titled,
and/or you were the beneficiary of your spouse’s life insurance and retirement accounts,
then, fortunately for you, probate wasn’t necessary. For your estate, however, this won’t be
the case since now all of those assets are yours and yours alone. Now is the time for you
to sit down with an estate planning attorney to discuss your options for making the transfer
of your assets to your heirs just as easy as it was for you.
You’ve recently divorced. If you didn’t have an estate plan before the divorce, then you
should make one after to insure that your assets go where you want them to go and you
and your former spouse have complied with all of the terms of your property settlement
agreement. In addition, now that you have assets titled in your sole name, you’ll want to
create a plan that addresses both mental disability and death.
If after reviewing these personal red flags you still believe that you aren’t in need of an
estate plan, then you should take a look at the financial red flags to see if you fit into one
of those categories.
Contact Julie Norton if you’d like to discuss how we can help you with estate planning.
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