Estate planning is a team effort. One element of this is your advisor — but even the best estate planning attorneys have a limited amount of power.
There are other people involved in making a plan work. It depends on your situation, but they could include family members, business partners — and you. Bringing everyone together is often a key component to success.
Preparing documents
Documents are often central to estate planning. However, as explained on Forbes, many people prepare estate planning documents and then file them away.
While it is important to keep wills and related items safe, it rarely benefits to keep them secret. The people you name in powers of attorney, wills and so on probably want to know what to expect before they are grieving your loss. Communication, therefore, often has a positive correlation with success.
Funding trusts
Many people establish trusts and then fail to fund them properly. This often diminishes or eliminates the benefit of the trusts in question.
Transferring ownership of your assets is a major step. It is typically advisable to consistently review your estate plan and adjust the level of funding in your trust according to be appropriate for your specific situation at the time of the review.
Reviewing the plan
Review is frequently a major component of successful plans, even when trusts are not an issue. Laws change, as do the financial, real estate and commodities markets that tend to determine the value of most contemporary estates.
With consistent, regular review, it is typically possible to avoid most disputes related to insufficient assets, new family members, different laws and so on. Even the simplest estate plans often benefit from this.
Finally, a custom solution is often the best way to avoid conflict. Your plan deserves to be as unique as your goals.
