Two fundamental pieces of an Estate Plan. A Trust or Will conveys assets upon death. A Power of Attorney names someone to help with your finance and health.
Durable Power of Attorney
- You authorize someone to act on your behalf during your life for business and finance and healthcare
- He/she can act not against your competent wishes, but very helpful:
- Any time during life
- During your absence
- During your incapacity
- In the event you cannot really help yourself this allows your family to avoid needing to go to court to get appointed as Guardian (for the person) and Conservator (for their assets)
Trust or Will:
Trust
- Convey assets into Trust during your life
- Provides mechanism and assets for you during life and during incapacity
- Provides assets during life of surviving spouse
- Distributes after life of both of you to your ultimate beneficiaries
- Does all of this without need of probate
Will
- state your wishes, such as, “I leave everything to my spouse; if my spouse should not survive me, then divided equally among my children”
- Executor must probate your Will for it to be effective
- probate is often a 6-month process, or longer, involving the court, attorneys, notice, publication, deadlines and various levels of court supervision
Again, there are two fundamental pieces of an Estate Plan. One is to convey your assets, and the other puts someone in place in case you need help handing your affairs.