Estate Planning- Orange County Wills & Trust Attorney
Estate planning ensures the security of your family by creating a plan that provides for your needs and your family in case of disability and for your family in case of death.
Living Trust and Wills
Protecting and providing for our family and friends is an important part of creating an estate plan. When no estate plan is created the laws of California will determine who gets your assets and who doesn’t. When you create a living trust or will you are deciding who your beneficiaries are and what you want to leave to each. You are making sure that your wishes are known and carried out. Putting together an estate plan gives you the ability to inform your loved ones who you want your property and assets to be given to.
Creating an estate plan can also help maintain family harmony. When your wishes and desires are not made clear there can be disputes between family members. Setting down your desires on paper can avoid confusion and make clear to your loved ones what your intentions are.
Power of Attorney and Health Care Directives
Planning for situations in which you may not be able to make financial or health care decisions is an important part of estate planning. By creating a power of attorney you are deciding who you can entrust to make decisions about your finances and assets in case of your disability. Having a power of attorney can help take care of your loved ones in case of your disability. Without a power of attorney, your family may need to go to court and appoint a conservator to manage your assets. A conservatorship can be time consuming and costly and can lead to disputes between family members as to who should manage your affairs.
Creating a Health Care Directive allows you to select who you trust to make your health care decisions if you are unable to make those decisions. When you do not select a person to make these decisions for you then California law determines who gets to make those decisions for you.
Creating an estate plan allows you to empower yourself and to decide who receives your assets and who gets to make decisions on your behalf in case of incapacity. It gives you the peace of mind to know that your family is protected in case of incapacity or death.
Orange County Wills & Trust Attorney
Part of creating an estate plan is understanding what options are available to meet the needs of your loved ones in case of death or disability. In most cases people put off creating an estate plan because it is uncomfortable to discuss death or disability. It makes the majority of us feel vulnerable and for most of us it is an uncomfortable conversation to have. As an Orange County Wills & Trust Attorney, I to had to work on creating my estate plan. It was not easy thinking and creating an estate plan that considers my possible death and disability. I consider estate planning as an important step in bringing serenity into people’s life. Taking the steps to create an estate plan brings peace of mind in knowing that you have done your part to take care of your loved ones.
The first step to creating an estate plan is meeting with an Orange County Wills & Trust Attorney to go over your goals and objectives.
Learn more about our Estate Planning Tools: Living Trust, Will, and Power of Attorney
Probate
If the person who passed away left a will or did not leave a will then a probate process may be required to distribute assets. During this process a personal representative or executor is appointed who will be involved in administering the estate. This person will have the responsibility of distributing assets based on the wished of the decedent or state law if there is no will. It can be a lengthy and costly process. Our attorney, Norma Duenas represents clients in probate matters in Temecula, Riverside and Orange County.
If you would like to file for probate without an attorney, you can go to: How to Fill Out a Probate Petition in California.