SOUTH JERSEY ESTATE & TRUST PLANNING

Not wanting to get your affairs in order is normal. Who wants to talk about their death. However, Estate & Trust Planning is not just about death. Durable Powers of Attorney allow you to select a trusted agent to manage your finances and personal matters if you become disabled. Advance Health Care Directives allow you to select an agent to make medical decisions for you if you are no longer capable of making your own decisions. These two documents alone can prevent the need for a more expensive, cumbersome, and sometimes lengthy guardianship proceeding and allow you to appoint a trusted person in your life so that untrustworthy people don’t step in to take over your affairs.

A Last Will and Testament allows you to name an executor to manage your estate without having to obtain a bond. Your Will allows you to name guardians for your minor children. This can prevent families fighting over who will be their guardians. Your Will can set up trusts for your children’s inheritances to avoid being deposited in the Surrogate Court’s trust fund until the child attains 18 years of age. Trusts protect inheritances. Who wants their young adult children to inherit their lifelong savings and family wealth? If your adult children have creditors or are in failing marriages, you will want to protect your hard-earned assets from ending up in the creditors’ account or with an ex-spouse or unscrupulous friends. Your Will or a Living Trust can create a thrift trust for your child or a special needs trust for a child or grandchild who has special needs.

Estate & Trust Planning involves reviewing joint bank accounts, the Deed(s) to your real property and beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts. Changes may need to be made, and you want to coordinate these assets with how your probate assets will be distributed by the terms of your Last Will and Testament.

Estate & Trust Planning is not simple. However, Ergood Law, LLC can help you create a plan that will give you peace of mind to know that your Estate will end up with those you choose and in a manner that will protect inheritances for your loved ones and lead to generational wealth, instead of waste.