Estate Planning
Our team of compassionate estate planning professionals will work with you to craft a thorough estate plan that will allow your family to carry out your financial and medical wishes if you become incapacitated, and avoiding the need for court oversight.
PERSONALLY TAILORED ESTATE PLANS
No single formula fits every family’s unique circumstances or satisfies each client’s personal needs.
We believe in providing a customized experience to every client as opposed to the one-size-fits all approach used by document preparation services. We spend the majority of our time listening to your needs and crafting the ideal plan that best suits you.
A carefully designed estate plan provides security and structure for your loved ones and minimizes federal and state death taxes. Prime Legal Firm can guide you through comprehensive estate plans that may include:
- Establishing Trusts
- Drafting a Last Will and Testament
- Health Care Documents (Advanced Directives)
- Powers of Attorney
TRUSTS
Trusts can be simple or complex, and can serve a variety of legal, personal, investment or tax planning purposes. At the most basic level, a trust is a legal entity with at least three parties involved: the trustor (the person that creates the trust), the trustee (the person that manages the trust), and the trust beneficiary.
Depending on the situation, there may be many advantages to establishing a trust, including avoiding probate court. In most cases, assets owned in a revocable living trust will pass to the trust beneficiaries (or heirs) immediately upon the death of the trustor with no probate required. Certain trusts also may result in tax advantages both for the trustor and the beneficiary. Or they may be used to protect property from creditors, or simply to provide for someone else to manage and invest property for the trustor and the named beneficiaries. If well drafted, another advantage of trusts is their continuing effectiveness even if the trustor dies or becomes incapacitated.
How you can benefit from a Trust:
– Shield your private fortune from frivolous claims
– Manage profits and pension funds
– Manage how your estate will be spent
– Minimize estate taxes
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
With this plan, you create a document that specifies who is to receive your assets after your passing. As part of the Will you appoint your Executor, who is the person you appoint to distribute your assets according to your Will after probate.
A Will does not shield you from probate, instead it essentially guarantees it. The minimum value at which probate must be conducted is determined by your state. While your estate must still usually meet the minimum dollar threshold, a Will cannot be enforced until the court validates it through the probate process.
Your Last Will and Testament is just one part of a comprehensive estate plan. If a person dies without a Will they are said to have died intestate and state laws will determine how and to whom the person’s assets will be distributed. When considering drafting a Will, note the following:
- A Will has no legal authority until after death. Therefore, a Will does not help manage a person’s affairs when they become incapacitated by illness or injury.
- A Will does not help an estate avoid probate.
- A Will is a good place to appoint the guardians of your minor children if they become orphaned. All parents of minor children should document their choice of guardians. If you leave this to chance, you could be setting up a dispute among family members, and your children could end up with the wrong guardians.
ADVANCED HEALTH CARE DIRECTIVES
An Advanced Health Care Directive is a document that specifies the type of medical and personal care you would want should you lose the ability to make and communicate your own decisions. Your Advanced Directive can specify who will make and communicate decisions for you, and it can set out the circumstances under which you would not like your life to be prolonged if, for example, you were in a coma with no reasonable chance of recovery.
A document that goes hand-in-hand with your Advanced Health Care Directive is an authorization to your medical providers to allow specified individuals to access your medical information. Without this authorization, your doctor may refuse to communicate with your hand-picked decision maker. Do not allow this to happen to you or your loved one. Speak to a Prime Legal Firm estate planning lawyer about establishing your Advance Health Care Directive.
POWERS OF ATTORNEY
A Power of Attorney is a legal document giving another person the legal right to conduct specified activities on your behalf. What those powers are depends on the terms of the document. A Power of Attorney may be very broad or very limited and specific. All Powers of Attorney terminate upon the death of the principal, and may terminate when the principal becomes incapacitated. When the intent is to designate a back-up decision-maker in the event of incapacity, then a Durable Power of Attorney should be used. Durable Powers of Attorney should be frequently updated because banks and other financial institutions may hesitate to honor a Power of Attorney that is more than a year old.
Contact Us
For inquiries, please send our Legal Team a message by filling out the form. We respond to all inquiries within the next business day.
1100 West Town and Country Road Ste 1250 Orange, CA 92868
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Contact Us
For inquiries, please send our Legal Team a message by filling out the form. We respond to all inquiries within the next business day.