Louisville Estate Planning Lawyer

Estate Planning Attorneys Proudly Serving Louisville, KY

Louisville Estate Planning AttorneyEstate planning is one of the most important steps you can take to protect yourself and your loved ones. Proper planning can help you prepare for unforeseen accidents and death. It allows you to take charge of your finances and provides a cushion for your loved ones in the event of your death or incapacitation.

Contrary to what many believe, estate planning is not for only the rich. The term ‘estate’ does not necessarily refer to massive wealth. Your single car, house, and even the money in your bank account form part of your estate. Even your life insurance policy constitutes part of your estate.

You should have a plan for what will happen to these assets in the event of your death. If you don’t plan for how they will be disposed of, the laws of your state will dictate their disposal. This may produce results far from what you may wish. You’ll understand here why you should have a current estate plan and how the Louisville estate planning lawyers at Triplett & Carothers can help.

What is estate planning?

Estate planning concerns the process of organizing all your assets and making plans to manage them during your lifetime, at your death, and after your death. The plan allows you to decide who will inherit you and how the process should go.

It also helps you provide for your dependents in the most tax-efficient manner possible. Your dependents are all those who rely on you for financial support. They may include your spouse(s), ex(es), child(ren), parents, grandparents, or siblings.

Why is Estate Planning so important?

Having a comprehensive estate plan is essential for sound financial management and well-being. Here are three reasons why:

Provide for incapacity

Estate planning helps you authorize your loved ones to act for you if you are unable to manage your affairs due to ill health or incapacity. While you may think you do not need a document to authorize this step, the truth is that the process is not automatic. Ordinarily, for your loved ones to do this, they would have to petition a court to declare you legally incompetent. This process is often lengthy, costly, and quite avoidable. Estate planning allows you to plan for this event.

Avoid Probate

In the event of death without an estate plan, the will you leave will pass through probate court in an expensive and time-consuming process that is also open to the public. Every asset that makes up your estate will have to be declared, and this information will be available in public records.

Also, the probate court dictates the process until all matters about your estate are settled and all assets distributed. This can put your surviving family in the tenuous position of not having immediate access to funds to pay for expenses while your estate is being settled.

Proper estate planning allows you to pass your estate to your loved ones in a private, quick, and inexpensive process that can bypass probate.

Avoid excessive taxes

There are many types of estate and inheritance taxes that you should be aware of – both at the state level and at the federal level. In addition to awareness, there are strategies to reduce or eliminate these taxes. You must start planning your estate early enough so that you can implement many of these strategies.

Common estate planning strategies

Estate planning strategies are numerous and ingenious, and even more are being developed every day. Here are three of the most common strategies.

Power of Attorney

This is a document that gives another person the authority to act on your behalf in financial or medical situations. This document is used to plan for incapacitation due to an accident or ill health. The extent of the power the person gets is dependent on how much you are comfortable giving.

Trust

This is a legal arrangement in which a person (a trustee) holds the legal title to a property for the benefit of another person (the beneficiary). The arrangement allows you to protect your assets or provide for your heirs by transferring assets to an entity that will administer them on your behalf. A common type of trust is the living trust.

Will

This is a document that states your wishes for the distribution of your assets upon death. Wills are the most basic type of estate planning strategy. When validly drawn up, they will be key to protecting your wishes in the event of death.

How Can Our Louisville Estate Planning Lawyer Help You?

Our Louisville probate lawyers at Triplett & Carothers will help you with the strategies referenced above and provide insight into other ways to properly plan your estate. Contact us at Triplett & Carothers to start a conversation about planning your estate.