Estate planning is simply the process of organizing your affairs during your lifetime so that your people and property are protected after your passing. It involves making decisions about how you want your assets to be handled and ensuring that your wishes are carried out effectively. Beyond just distributing assets, estate planning also involves considerations such as minimizing taxes, providing for the care of minor children or other dependents, planning for incapacity, and ensuring that your healthcare and financial decisions are made according to your preferences.

It depends! Estate planning is not one size fits all, so it’s hard for us to give you a quote without knowing more about you. Even if you believe your situation is relatively simple, there are likely nuances you are not considering. We discuss our fees and process at length in the PLAN Design Meeting, after we have counseled you on all your options. At that time, you will choose the plan that is in line with what you want to pay.

We offer flat fees as opposed to billing by the hour, so you know exactly what your investment will be. Finally, we will only recommend planning with us if the amount you would save by doing an estate plan is greater than our fee.

Estate planning is an area of law that is state-specific. That means you should work with an attorney licensed in the state in which you reside. I’m licensed in New York and New Jersey. If you live in New York or New Jersey, we can prepare your estate planning documents. If you do not, message us, and we will be happy to refer you to an attorney licensed in your state.

Simply schedule your 15 Minute Introduction Call.

You have two options with your estate planning: a Will-based plan, or a Living Trust-based plan.

Unfortunately, even a simple will is still subject to the expense and delays of probate. It’s not the complexity of the document itself that causes the time and expense, it’s the probate process. For this reason, most of our clients choose to create a living trust instead of a will, which is designed for simplicity and to avoid the probate process completely.

However, as part of an overall, comprehensive estate plan, a special “pour-over” will is used to appoint guardians for any minor children alive at your death.

A Living Trust is a document where you appoint a chosen individual to manage your assets should you become incapacitated and distribute them to your family at your death. It is almost always preferable to a will because it is designed to avoid the time, expense, and publicity of probate, which a will cannot avoid. It comes as a surprise to many of our clients that wills do not avoid probate court—they guarantee it!

We go over the differences between a Will and a Living Trust in depth during the PLAN Design Meeting. Ultimately, the decision is yours.