If opting out of death and incapacity were an option, estate planning wouldn’t be a thing. But unfortunately, there’s a risk you will become incapacitated, and also a risk that you might pass away (some might say a certainty, but our endless optimism makes us say “risk”). Estate planning is designed to deal with the possibility of either one of those events occurring.

There’s a saying that everyone has an estate plan—it’s just a matter of whether it’s the one you create or the one imposed on you (and your family) by the legal and tax system. An estate plan, when you create it, allows you to determine how your assets will be distributed after your death, and who will help you make decisions during your lifetime if you can’t make them for yourself. As you might imagine, there’s a veritable cornucopia of reasons putting an estate plan in place is something every adult, particularly adults who are parents, ought to do.

First, as touched on above, when you take the reins on your estate plan, you avoid defaulting to Ohio law, which may not align with your wishes or your family's best interests. So you are able to specify who should receive your assets, how much they should receive, when they should receive it, and who will handle the administration and division process.

Second, a properly drafted estate plan can help you minimize estate taxes and income taxes. With proper planning, you can ensure that your beneficiaries receive the maximum value of your assets by minimizing the amount of taxes that must be paid.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, an estate plan can provide for the care of your children or dependents. If you have young children or dependents with special needs, an estate plan can ensure that they are taken care of in the event of your untimely death. By designating a guardian and establishing a trust, you can provide for their financial needs and ensure that they are cared for by someone you trust, not by whichever family member most aggressively and convincingly seeks the guardianship position.

Fourth, an estate plan can help avoid family conflicts and legal battles. The absence of a clear estate plan can lead to disagreements among family members, which can result in legal battles that destroy families and empty wallets. An estate plan can provide clarity and minimize the potential for disputes.

Finally, an estate plan can give you peace of mind. Our clients experience security and comfort knowing that their wishes will be carried out after they’re gone and that their loved ones will be taken care of. With the possible exception of Xanax and Dramamine, nothing makes air travel as relaxing as a properly drafted estate plan.

An estate plan includes, at a minimum, a Will, a durable/financial power of attorney, and a healthcare power of attorney.

The Will allows you to designate how assets should pass, if they do not already pass through beneficiary designations or joint ownership, and allows you to designate Executors, who oversee the administration of the estate, and Guardians, who take care of your children (children who are either minors or legally deemed incompetent).

The powers of attorney apply during your lifetime and become obsolete when you pass. The purpose behind these documents is to allow you to designate agents, or attorneys-in-fact, who can manage your affairs and decisions if you cannot do it yourself.

Often times, an estate plan includes a trust and a living will. The trust is discussed more below, but the living will simply lets you make end-of-life treatment decisions in advance so that your family does not need to make those difficult decisions.

A trust can be an incredibly useful tool when it comes to estate planning, and is included in the Plan in Place fee at no additional cost if we think it’s a helpful part of your estate plan.

At its core, a trust is a legal arrangement that allows you to transfer your assets, either now or in the future, to a third party, known as the trustee, who then manages those assets on behalf of your chosen beneficiaries. Here are a few reasons why a trust can be so beneficial:

Avoiding probate: Probate is the legal process that takes place after someone dies, where their assets are distributed according to their will (if they have one) or state law (if they don't). Probate can be time-consuming, expensive, and public, and a trust can help you avoid it altogether. Because the assets in a trust are owned by the trust itself, rather than the individual who created it, when the individually dies, assets that are titled in the trust or directed to the trust through a beneficiary designation do not need to go through probate.

Control, flexibility, and creditor protection: When you create a trust, you can specify exactly how you want your assets to be managed and distributed.

We commonly describe trusts as “buckets,” where you can allow assets to collect in that bucket when you pass, or divide into separate buckets if you have multiple beneficiaries. You can designate how and when you want assets distributed from those buckets, and can assure that assets in the buckets are protected from creditors if a beneficiary is ever sued or gets divorced.

A common arrangement among our clients is to leave assets in trust for their children but allow the children to be their own trustee, either immediately or upon reaching a certain age, so that the children can have long-term protection over their funds but still be able to access the funds with few restrictions.

Privacy: Because a trust doesn't go through probate, the details of your assets and how they're distributed are kept private. This can be especially important if you don’t want the whole world to know about your assets and what your beneficiaries are receiving.

Tax benefits: Depending on the type of trust you create, you may be able to take advantage of certain tax benefits. In the arrangement described above, where clients leave assets in trust for their children, those assets and the appreciation on those assets can be excluded from children’s estates for estate tax purposes, even though the children can manage their trust shares and have significant freedom in terms of accessing and managing their funds.

Overall, a trust can be a powerful tool for managing your assets and ensuring that they're distributed according to your wishes. Whether you're looking to avoid probate, protect your assets, or provide for your loved ones, a trust can help you achieve your goals and give you peace of mind.

Our traditional model of service is still our bread-and-butter, and appropriate for most of our clients. Under that model, we meet with you in person or over Zoom to get to know you, determine your planning needs, quote you a flat fee (typically $1600 or less) or give you a specific range for what your plan might cost, and then we get to work. We send you drafts, you review them, ask us any questions or direct us on whatever changes you want, and then we meet with you to execute the documents. If you want to engage us under that model, that’s fantastic, and please feel free to contact us.

The traditional model is not for everyone, though. Just finding time in your busy schedule during regular business hours when we can meet can be a pain, and the fees are higher than a lot of people are willing to pay. While we strive to make the traditional approach work as well as possible for our clients, it can still be less than ideal.

If you are like many of our clients, your estate planning needs are fairly straightforward. While you value the expertise and knowledge that our firm offers, you also want a process tailored around you—a process that offers a reduced fixed fee, convenience, and efficiency. Our new Plan in Place service is designed to deliver on what you want.

Plan in Place is the ideal solution for many of our clients for several reasons:

Personalized and Comprehensive: Our simple questionnaire is designed to quickly gather specific and relevant information about your unique situation so that we can create personalized and comprehensive estate planning documents tailored to your needs.

Professionally Reviewed and Designed: The attorney who reviews your completed questionnaire can make sure to address potential issues that you may not have considered but that are germane to your plan, such as tax implications and planning, creditor protection, or incapacity planning. This helps ensure that your documents are legally sound and effective.

Easy, Cost-Effective, and Fast: An attorney who charges an hourly rate or a fixed fee under a traditional model typically wants to meet with you multiple times at his or her office throughout the estate planning process. Those meetings are often not necessary for clients with simple situations, but they can be expensive, and they can slow down the process. Our Plan in Place program allows you to complete your estate plan much faster without having to leave your house, and while also saving you money.