Danger 1: Probate eats up your child’s inheritance. If you don’t have an estate plan, your property will have to go through the probate process before your children and inheritors can take possession of it. Though the probate process doesn’t usually take up as much time or money as people may fear, it can be a laborious process. When combined with estate or inheritance taxes, it can significantly reduce how much money you leave to your children. A good probate attorney costs money, and that money will have to come from your estate.

Danger 2: Your property may go to those whom you do not wish to receive it. Many people are surprised to learn that state laws already determine who receives your property if you die. These laws, called laws of intestate succession, exist in all states, and unless you create a valid will they will choose for you who inherits your property. Without an estate plan, your property may pass to your parents, your siblings or some other family member even if that was the last thing you wanted.

Danger 3: It can hurt your family. If you’ve spent your life caring for your family, being there when they needed you, protecting them and providing all the support you can muster, the failure to have an estate plan can ruin this legacy. Without an estate plan your family may end up fighting over your possessions, they may have to make difficult decisions about your medical care without any guidance from you and they may spend endless hours in needless worry and emotional turmoil.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Myth 1: I don’t need an estate plan because I’m not rich, or sick, or elderly.

Reality: The only people who don’t need an estate plan are those who are under the age of 18. Everyone else can benefit from some kind of estate planning, whether it’s creating a will, a medical directive or establishing a trust. Even if you don’t have a lot of money, or a spouse, or children, you will want to create a plan that allows your wishes to be met when you aren’t able to express them.

Myth 2: All I need is a will.

Reality: Your will is just the beginning. A will is a great tool to have, but it isn’t the end to your estate planning efforts. Also, your will becomes less and less important depending on what kind of estate plan you create. If you want to avoid probate by, for example, creating various trusts, your will may not be as important. The key point here is that each person’s estate plan depends on his or her desires, and a will is not a solution to every desire you have.

Myth 3: If I create a living trust, I will have to give my property away.

Reality: You still maintain control of the trust property. A living trust allows you to maintain control over your property even though you are no longer the legal owner. The difference may seem like hair-splitting, but it can be quite beneficial in estate planning.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Negative: You can end up making a lot of mistakes. A lot of DIY will software provides good information, but that doesn’t mean they are perfect. An examination of one such will preparation software on the market revealed that preparing your will with it could lead to serious problems. What kind of problems?  Issues found were those that incorrectly omitted references to children, left out references about ademption, and didn’t name a guardian for your child.  Ademption is a term used in the law of wills to determine what happens when property bequeathed under a will is no longer in the testator‘s estate at the time of the testator’s death.

Positive: You’ll learn about wills. Preparing to make your own will can give you a good idea of what the process involves. This in itself is often a great benefit as it makes you more comfortable with the endeavor. When you hire an estate planning attorney you need to play an active role in creating your estate plan, and a basic education about the process will allow you to do this instead of sitting idly by and tuning out.  One way to receive this basic education is to attend one of our estate planning seminars where you’ll learn more about estate planning without the hassle of trying to navigate a do it yourself will.

Negative: You can cost yourself more time and money than just hiring a lawyer. Making your own will saves money, right? Wrong. Especially if you don’t take your will to an attorney to make sure it’s written correctly. If your home-made will takes its mistakes with it to court, your estate can spend a lot of money cleaning up the errors.

Positive: It can save you money. Bringing a bad will before probate is costly, but a DIY will that you’ve vetted through an attorney can save you money. The key point is to always get legal advice from an attorney when creating something as important as a will.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Let’s face it, writing a will and thinking about what will happen to you if you get sick or die is not exactly a cheery subject. The entire field of estate planning is based on some pretty macabre facts of life. But they are facts, whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not. The mental and emotional bars to starting your estate plan aren’t always easily conquered, but you can take steps to alleviate the stress involved.

Tip 1: Focus on people, not things. Much of estate planning is ensuring that your family and loved ones are cared for. Instead of focusing on your death, it can be helpful to center your thoughts on others as you think of how you can make their lives better.

Tip 2: Find comfort. Confronting your own mortality is something mankind has been doing since the dawn of time. You aren’t alone in your fears, and you don’t have to do it alone. Whether you find comfort in the works of philosophers, theologians, counselors or wise friends, there are any number of resources available to help you through your own struggles.

Tip 3: Get advice. What often makes estate planning so hard is the confluence of the emotional resistance and the prospect of having to learn about technical, dry legal concepts. Here again, help is available. Your estate planning attorney can walk you through the process and explain the rather abstract and boring legal concepts in terms that make it much easier to get a handle on.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Part 1: Establish some goals. Estate planning starts by asking yourself some deceptively simple questions. How do I want to be remembered? What do I want to leave my family? What do I want to happen to my remains? What about when I get sick? Sit down and give thought to your goals for the future. Take into consideration all the things you own, as well as all the people who are important to you in your life.

Part 2: Sitting down and talking about it. If you have your goals but have no idea how to achieve them, don’t worry. That’s what your estate planning attorney is for. Your lawyer will sit down with you, discuss your options, advise you on the best choices to make and guide you through the process of creating each element of your plan.

Part 3: Building it piece-by-piece. Each element of your estate plan has specific requirements you have to meet. Fortunately, you don’t have to create them all at once. Build your plan by completing each portion one at a time. If you make steady progress, your plan will be completed before you know it.

Part 4: Making it a part of your routine. An estate plan has to change as your life changes. Getting married, having a child, caring for an elderly loved one, all of these require you to make updates to your plan.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

A good estate plan is one that is up-to-date, regularly reviewed and one that takes into consideration all the changes we go through in our lives. As a new article in Forbes points out, some of these changes may go unaccounted for and can cause significant problems if not corrected. Don’t assume that everything in your estate plan is correct, and take the time to look for these common mistakes.

Mistake 1: The wrong beneficiary. If you have an IRA or retirement account that you’ve had forever, you very well may have the wrong person listed as your beneficiary. This is especially true if you started your plan before getting married or having children. Take a look at your documentation and change the beneficiary if necessary.

Mistake 2: The wrong guardian. Your will should name a guardian to look after your children if you should die. But what if that guardian is no longer as close to you as he or she was when you made the will or doesn’t want to have that responsibility any more? What if your kids are now teenagers who need a guardian with different parenting skills? Look at who you have listed as a guardian and, if necessary, choose someone else by making a change to your will.

Mistake 3: Your living will is bad. This one applies to any medical directive. Your wishes may have changed, the laws may have changed or the document may have been incorrectly created. Review and update if necessary.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The new year provides an excellent opportunity for you to make a to-do list of everything you didn’t get around to doing in the previous 12 months. It may take time and may not exactly be what you want to do this holiday season, but catching up on your estate plan is a step you need to take before you forget. Do it now, and you’ll be glad you didn’t wait.

Tip 1: Talk about it. In estate planning situations, one of the most common causes of conflict that arises between family members results simply because of a lack of communication. If you’re visiting your family this holiday season, take a little time to sit down and tell them about your estate plan. A few minutes spent talking to your family now can save a world of heartache later.

Tip 2: Review and update. If you created your estate plan years ago but haven’t looked it over in a while, set aside some time to do it before the year is over. This is especially true if your family or financial situation has changed significantly since the last time you updated your plan.

Tip 3: Get started. If there is one area of life that always seems to be put on the back-burner for most people, it’s estate planning. The idea of planning for what happens after you die strikes some people as macabre, depressing and even scary at times. But ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. If you’ve had estate planning on your mind but haven’t taken the time to start, schedule a meeting with an estate planning attorney to start your year off right.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The depth of feeling many pet owners have towards their animal companions is apparent by even the most casual observer of owner-pet interactions. If you’re a pet owner, you no doubt feel a need to ensure your animal is well cared for if you should die. Typically, these desires exist in concert with the desire to leave your family members as much of your estate as possible. But what if your pet was the only family you had? What would you do then?

For one Italian woman, the answer was clear. Maria Assunta, a 94-year old single woman whose husband had died years earlier, left her entire fortune to Tomassino, a 4-year-old cat who had been her faithful companion in the final years of her life. Tomassino’s good fortune was substantial, as Ms. Assunta’s estimated worth was about $13 million.

Technically, however, Ms. Assunata couldn’t leave her pet the money as Italian law prevents animals from owning property. Ms. Assunta and her attorneys had looked for any organization to which she could leave her fortune as long as it could guarantee that Tommassino would be cared for in the manner she desired. Having failed to find such a group, and having no other living relatives, Ms. Assunta instead left the entire fortune to her nurse in order for her to care for Tommassino. The nurse, known only as Stefania, is currently living somewhere in Italy with the fortunate feline.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Martin Luther King’s legacy occupies a hallowed position in the pantheon of 20th century leaders. It also has an unfortunately troubled estate, one that has given rise to numerous legal challenges in the years since his death. According to a story in Forbes, a new legal fight over the former civil rights pioneer’s estate has erupted over the possession of historic documents owned by a Mississippi television anchor.

After his death, Dr. King’s children have had numerous legal battles over the status of his estate. Eventually, the heirs formed a corporation, The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc., to manage the estate and all its related issues. One of these issues involves the letters and documents owned by Howard Nelson Ballou, A Mississippi television anchor. Mr. Ballou possesses handwritten letters penned by Dr. King, as well as other documents such as newsletters he wrote and even a handwritten letter Rosa Parks sent to the civil rights leader.

The documents came to be in Mr. Ballou’s possession because of his parent’s close ties to the King family. His father was a in the same fraternity as Dr. King and his mother, Maude Williams Ballou, was Dr. King’s former personal secretary. Mrs. Ballou worked for Dr. King in the 1950′s, and she has stated that she received the documents directly from him at various times.

The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. sued the Ballou family in Mississippi, demanding the return of the documents it claims belongs to the estate. The case is ongoing, and the court is expected to soon rule on a motion to dismiss filed by the Ballou family.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The laws governing wills have long been the subject of rumor and popular misconceptions. Let’s look at three of them and why they aren’t true.

Myth 1: The Reading Of The Will. You can blame fiction writers, TV producers and anyone else with a flair for the dramatic for this myth. You’ve probably seen it dozens of times. A dour-faced attorneys sits before the gathered family of the deceased and reads the terms of the will—with shocking results! In realty, this dramatic scenario is neither required by law, nor does it take place very often. While you can demand someone read your will in the presence of your family, this will have no effect on the legality of the document or how it is used.

Myth 2: Your Adult Children Are Guaranteed An Inheritance: Many states have provisions that will prevent a decedent’s family, including his or her spouse and minor children, from being completely left out in the cold when it comes to inheritance. However, you are under no obligation to leave your adult children anything, and can effectively disinherit them.

Myth 3: The State Will Take My Property. Actually, this myth is true, but it only happens in extremely rare circumstances. If you don’t create a will, and if you have no family members to inherit your property, your state will inherit your estate under escheat laws. However, even if you fail to make a will, your property automatically goes to your family in order of their closeness of relationship to you.

The Law Offices Of Cheryl David is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.