Estate Planning

Estate Planning

Part of planning for the future is deciding about what will happen to your estate after your death. Another issue is deciding what should happen should you become incapacitated an unable to act for yourself. These issues fall into the broad category called estate planning.

This section begins with resources that give an overview of the many aspects of estate planning; they also address specific topics such as wills, living trusts, and powers of attorney.

After these general resources, we recommend some resources specifically on will, revocable living trusts, and durable powers of attorney for healthcare (living wills)

General Resources on Estate Planning

Depending on your age, family situation, and assets, your need for estate planning may be simple or complex. The following resources can help you begin to assess your needs and goals.

Wills and Estate Planning from Nolo.com, the self-help legal site, offers an excellent place to start. The site’s many articles are arranged in logical topics and provide sound, easy-to-understand information.

For a very brief overview of what estate planning entails, check out Estate Planning, a Life Advice pamphlet from the Federal Consumer Information Center, prepared by Metlife.

Estate Planning FAQ's from the American Bar Association provides a quick estate planning overview in a Q&A format.

Wills

A will is a document in which you specify what should be done with your property—not just your home but any possessions—after you die. It also names the executor, i.e. the person to handle the property. If you don’t make a will, then state law will determine what happens to your property. Experts recommend that even if you have almost nothing that you should have a will. These resources will explain more about what a will is and how to make one.

Making a Will is a section in the Estate Planning Life Advice brochure prepared for the Federal Consumer Information Center (FCIC) by MetLife. It describes the basics of making a will.

What is a Will? from AARP offers an introduction to preparing a will. It also includes a worksheet to help you get organized.

Wills from Nolo.com has various articles such as making a no-frills will, choosing a guardian for your children, choosing an executor, when do I need to change my will.

Living Trusts

A revocable living trust is a trust that you set up while you are still living and to which you immediately transfer ownership of assets that you plan to pass on to your heirs. You continue to control your assets within the trust and can revoke it or change it at any time. The chief advantage of living trusts, advise experts, is that after your death the ownership of the trust passes directly to the beneficiaries; it does not have to go through probate. Experts caution, however, that they are not appropriate for everyone. Their popularity has given rise to living trust scams and schemes that the wise consumer should avoid.

Living Trust FAQs from Kiplinger.com covers the basics of Living Trusts, their suitability for estate planning, and potential dangers.

Living Trust Offers: How to Make Sure They're Trust-worthy from the Federal Trade Commission provides tips for identifying misleading living trust offers.

Living Trusts: Beware of "One-Size-Fits-All" Estate Plans, a Consumer Alert from the Michigan State Attorney General’s Department, cautions against living trust kits being marketed across the country, particularly to older Americans and often at exorbitant costs, such as $1995 per trust.

Healthcare Directives (Living Will) and Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare

Making a will and/or creating a living trust are not sufficient because their main purpose is to determine what happens to your estate once you’ve died. To cover the eventuality that you may not be able to make your own health care decisions, you need a few more simple documents.

Experts recommend that you prepare two documents—a healthcare declaration and a durable power of attorney for health care. The healthcare directive defines the type of care you want or don’t want. Healthcare directives may be called living wills, advance directive, medical directive, directive to physicians, declaration regarding health care, designation of health care surrogate, or patient advocate directive depending on the state you live in. The durable power of attorney appoints someone to be your health care agent.

These resources provide more information about healthcare directives and durable powers of attorney.

Medical Powers of Attorney & Living Wills from Nolo.com provides articles about how these documents work, what you can cover, choosing your health care agent, and more.

Advance Directives and Do Not Resuscitate Orders from Familydoctor.org which is provided by the American Academy of Family Physicians. This article, in Q&A’s, provides an overview of advance directives and do not resuscitate orders.

10 Legal Myths About Advance Medical Directives (pdf) from the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging.

Prepared for Corning Credit Union by Remar Sutton & Associates, May 2005. Reviewed and updated June 2008. All rights reserved.