Estate Planning Fundamentals
There are myriad legal strategies you might consider implementing as you design your estate plan, and there are a handful of "must have" estate planning documents you must create before anything else.
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Elder Law
Focusing on the needs of families and individuals as they age is an important aspect of estate and long-term care planning. With advances in age come advances in health problems. Along with health challenges, we face special legal challenges that need addressing. The body of law addressing these challenges is commonly known as "Elder Law."
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Business
Succession
If you are starting to think about retirement, then it is also time to think about business succession. You can try to tackle this on your own, but your best bet is enlisting the assistance of an experienced business succession attorney. He or she will have the background and skills to help you plan for the future, putting you and your business in the best position for a profitable and smooth transition when that time comes.
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Medi-Cal
Crisis Planning
If you are thinking about Medi-Cal, you should speak to an attorney who specializes in that area of law as soon as possible. There is really no time to waste—all you are wasting is money and adding stress. The sooner you get going on this, the sooner you may be eligible for Medi-Cal.
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Minor Children
Children are a family's greatest treasure. Yet, most parents leave their children completely unprotected from one of life's most crushing blows – being orphaned upon the loss of their parents.
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Estate Tax
Planning
A regular visit with your attorney helps ensure that your estate plan would still work as originally designed and provides an opportunity to make any needed course corrections based on your present situation and your future estate tax planning goals.
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Asset Protection
Asset protection requires careful planning. Threats to your assets can come from a wide variety of potential predators, including future creditors and unnecessary taxes. For such planning to be effective, you will need the help of an experienced estate planning attorney sooner rather than later.
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Special Needs Planning
Special needs is the broad category of requirements and care for individuals suffering from a wide range of physical disabilities, medical conditions, intellectual difficulties, or emotional problems, including physical conditions, learning difficulties, and behavioral problems.
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Blended Families
Times have changed. In the new millennium, whether due to the death of a spouse or through divorce, blended families now outnumber traditional nuclear families. And the number is likely to grow, based on current statistics and trends.
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Probate & Estate Administration
There can be terrific grief and pain at the loss of a loved one. Beyond grief and pain, when you add external stresses to the equation, you can have a disaster on your hands in very short order. Part of the responsibilities or duties of an executor or administrator of an estate can be to reduce the level of stress during the probate process.
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Charitable
Planning
Charitable gift planning can be simple a simple process. For example, you can write a check, hand over cash, transfer stock or sign a quit-claim deed to real estate directly to the charity of your choosing. On the other hand, there are more involved strategies whereby you can give and receive depending on your unique circumstances.
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Veterans Benefits
One of the hardest things to know about Veteran's Benefits is that there are so many things that you possibly do not know. Accordingly, the best approach is to gather up all of your paperwork and spend some time discussing the situation with an attorney experienced in this area. It is essential that you have skilled legal counsel who has been through this arduous government process numerous times.
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