A San Diego, CA estate planning attorney can help you with asset protection and many other important elements of making sure that your loved ones receive everything you want them to have. There are several legal tools that your lawyer can bring to bear that will keep your assets as safe as possible and ensure that they go to the right people when you pass away or cannot manage them yourself.
How an Estate Planning Attorney in San Diego, CA Can Help You With Asset Protection
Walking You Through the Entirety of Estate Planning
Many people think of estate planning as simply making a will. And while your will is very important, a proper estate plan is much more than this. Another issue is understanding all the assets you actually own. You may be thinking of your house and some bank accounts, but there could be other accounts you haven’t thought of, cars, family heirlooms, and many other things, and the right strategy for protecting each of these assets is slightly different. With a proper understanding of California’s laws, an experienced attorney can help you create a strategic plan to protect all these things, decide who gets what and when, and reduce your risk of legal disputes or onerous tax burdens on your heirs.
Helping You Create a Will
The will is the foundational document in your estate plan, and often the plan starts here. This document is legally binding and decides who inherits your assets once you die. In order for this document to be accepted by the probate court, it has to follow the rules set down in California law. Your attorney will make sure that your will is valid in all respects, but also that it’s clear. Ambiguity in a will is one of the biggest reasons for disputes among beneficiaries of an estate. Your will can also allow you to name a guardian for your children, or even for pets, so you can be confident they will be cared for by someone you trust.
Setting Up Trusts
Another powerful tool for protecting your assets is to set up a trust. Once the trust is set up, you move assets into it, and those assets are managed by someone that you choose. This person is called a trustee.
There are various types of trusts and different ones are more or less suitable for certain situations. A living trust allows you to keep control of your assets as long as you’re alive and then pass them on after you die without them having to go through probate. With other trusts, you lose all control of the assets once you transfer them, but these usually come with lower tax burdens for the beneficiaries. Your lawyer will help you understand the types of trust available and which assets are best protected through the use of trusts. Trusts can protect certain assets even from creditors, family disputes, or lawsuits.
By Minimizing Taxes
California has some ruinous estate taxes for large estates, and federal estate taxes also apply. The larger your estate, the greater the percentage of it your beneficiaries will lose if your estate planning isn’t done carefully from the beginning. A lawyer can tell you all the ways to reduce these tax burdens legally. There are all kinds of options: one is to start gifting money or other assets to your family while you’re still alive, up to the limits allowed per year. This can greatly reduce the amount of your estate and thus the amount of the tax burden on it once you pass away.
Protecting Assets Against Probate
An estate has to go through probate, which is a court process, once a person dies. This can be very slow and very expensive: and it’s also public. Anyone can see the details of all parts of your estate that go through probate. An attorney can help you avoid a lot of this by using trusts or setting up joint ownership of certain assets so that those assets don’t have to go through probate at all. Minimizing what has to go through probate will also reduce legal fees and protect your family from stress and unwanted attention.
Planning for Incapacity
While most of us think about estate planning as something we do to be ready for the day we die, it’s important to also think through how you want things to be managed if you become sick or injured and can no longer manage your estate. Your lawyer will help you think through all of this and prepare for it.
You may wish to create several powers of attorney documents to give various people control of your financial assets or control over your healthcare decisions if you are no longer able to make them. It’s important to do this so that your assets will be managed by someone you trust and not by a court-appointed stranger in the event that you are incapacitated. Making sure the right person manages your assets if you become incapacitated is a key way of protecting them.
Shielding Assets from Creditors
Creditors may try to go after your assets if you owe them money or if they bring a lawsuit against your estate. Your attorney can help you protect your assets by setting up special irrevocable trusts that become untouchable by creditors. Although these assets are no longer under your control once you put them in the trust, this can be very valuable if you want to ensure that your beneficiaries receive their inheritance. This strategy is especially helpful for anyone whose estate may become vulnerable to a lawsuit even after they have passed, such as a doctor or a business owner. However, it’s very important that these trusts be set up legally, and your lawyer will make sure that this is the case.
Supporting Special Needs Family Members
If you have a child who relies on government benefits, for example, or a spouse who has been diagnosed with a progressive disease that will render them incapacitated, you need to think through how to protect the assets they need from being burned through too quickly while they suddenly become ineligible for benefits upon inheriting.
Your attorney can create a special needs trust for family members like this that holds money for them in trust but does not affect their benefits from Social Security or Medi-Cal. This trust can pay for medical care, but also for things like education or housing so that your loved one is cared for without losing the critical government support that they depend on for the long haul.
Updating Your Plan
The final way that an attorney will help you protect your assets is by making sure you regularly update your plan to accommodate any life changes, such as remarriage, divorce, the birth of new children, or the acquisition of valuable new assets like real estate. An experienced attorney will review your plan regularly to make sure it always fits your situation and goals and will also keep up with any new laws or changes to probate rules that could affect your estate.
To ensure that your assets are protected and your wishes honored after your passing, contact Frisella Neilson, APC in San Diego to talk with an experienced probate and trust attorney.
