Estate Planning Attorney Briana Robertson speaks about the essentials you should have covered in your estate plan. The most important thing to note is that every business owner needs to have and should have an estate plan set up in case of an unexpected death or an incapacitating injury. An estate plan is all about protecting your business and your assets. Protecting your generational wealth and growing a small business is something an estate planning attorney like Briana Robertson can help you with. In a previous blog, she gaveinformation on What is an Estate Plan and its importance. Now we need to look at the specifics of what should be covered in a good and thorough plan. Most of your assets can be protected through a will or a living trust which basically goes through how all of your things should be divided. These two types of documents will list all of your assets and property and how you want it to be divided as well as who should be in charge of managing these things to be sure it is divided properly. It sets the parameters and guidelines for what should happen to your things should you be unable to handle your own affairs.
Essentials List from Estate Planning Attorney
Will or Living Trust
The main part of estate planning is the will or a living trust. You could also use other documents like a testamentary trust but the main part of your estate plan is to have a will or living trust of some kind.
Financial Power of Attorney
Another thing an estate planning attorney will help you set up within your plan is a financial power of attorney. This is to protect your finances should you become incapacitated and unable to take care of things yourself. The financial power of attorney will lay out who will take care of your finances and tell them of all of the financial responsibilities you have.
Medical Directive
The next item you will want your estate planning attorney to help you with is setting up a medical directive or a medical power of attorney, depending on what state you are in. This is in case you end up in the hospital and become incapacitated and unable to make medical decisions for yourself. The medical directive essentially tells the doctors who is going to be in charge of making those decisions for you as well as the guidelines on how you would like those decisions to be made.
Personal Guardianship
This document you will want in place in case you become incapacitated not to the point of hospitalization but to the point you are unable to care for yourself. This happens a lot in cases of mental illnesses like dementia or Alzheimers. You also see it with individuals in their old age who are unable to care for themselves, meaning they can’t take care of their daily tasks. This is when you will want a personal guardianship in place that states who will take care of you and make decisions for you when you can’t take care of yourself any longer. The document, it will give the parameters on what and how you want them to handle certain situations as well as when this type of guardianship will kick in.
In addition to these reasons, if you have children you will want to have a declaration of guardianship to have a plan in place in case you unexpectedly pass on or become incapacitated and are unable to care for your children. This document will state who is to care for your child or children and the parameters in which you would like them raised. Not having this in place is putting your child at risk to be placed in anybody’s hands that the court decides instead of the one you wish to raise them.
HIPPA Medical Release Form
The last document we will discuss that your estate planning attorney should help you set up is a HIPPA Medical Release Form. This will allow whoever is caring for you or holding the medical power of attorney for you to access your past and current medical records. This will allow them to make informed decisions on your behalf.
In summary, your estate planning attorney will help you to make a solid plan in writing for your assets, property, health, and well-being should you unexpectedly pass or become incapacitated and unable to care for yourself. Attorney Briana Robertson can help you with all of these things, in fact, the law firm of Briana C. Robertson has specific packages for estate planning services.
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