Establish a Revocable Living Trust
Putting your assets in the name of your Living Trust has the following benefits:
1. The named Successor Trustee will be able to quickly disperse your assets to your named heirs according to your instructions. This makes the job of asset distribution very quick and easy for them.
2. There is no need to involve courts, attorneys, or judges. Probate requires all 3, is very expensive, and takes a lot of time and effort.
3. You can protect your young, inexperienced heirs with gradual distributions. These Trusts are not public documents, making them much more difficult to challenge than a standard Will.
4. You have complete control in naming the Grantor, who puts property into the Trust, the Trustee, who watches over the assets, and the Beneficiary, who enjoys the assets. In most cases, you are ALL THREE, and nobody else is involved.
Best of all, I make the Revocable Trust inexpensive at $575
Living Will
A living will is a writing, spelling out your wishes if death is imminent and you are in a state where YOU CANNOT SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, such as a coma, a stroke or Alzheimer's. It also names a health care surrogate to speak for you if you cannot speak for yourself. With a living will, you avoid situations like the well publicized Terri Schiavo case, where the husband and the mother fought in court for 15 years as to whether or not to terminate her life while she was in a persistent vegetative state.
Durable Power of Attorney
The Durable Power of Attorney is a simple low cost document which avoids the need for guardianship should someone become mentally incapacitated through a stroke, coma, Alzheimer's, etc. Guardianship also requires probate court, attorneys, quarterly inventories and quarterly accountings, etc.
I can make house calls when it
is not convenient for the client to come to me
