Why It's So Important To Hire An Attorney When You're Planning Your Estate
If there are people or causes in your life that you support and hold dear, one of the greatest acts of kindness that you can perform would be to plan your estate. It gives you the opportunity to predetermine how your assets, life insurance, real estate, and personal belongings will be divided up when you have passed away. As simple as this might sound, the actual process can be highly complicated if you aren't really aware of the process. The best thing you can do is hire an estate planning attorney to help you with the ordeal. Keep reading to see why.
Complex Family Situations Need Professional Solutions
When planning your estate you have to think about the actual structure of your family. It's relatively easy to plan an estate when you have been in a single marriage and all of your children are by the same partner. However, this is quite rare because so many people have been married multiple times. If you don't word your estate plans correctly your family could be in for a rude awakening.
Think about a situation like this: A couple is married for 30 years and then they divorce. One party remarries while the other remains single. After five years, the married partner dies, fully believing that their estate will naturally go to their current mate. The only issue is that because of the laws in their state the estate actually belongs to the first marriage partner. This leaves the second spouse out in the cold.
Hiring an estate planning attorney can help keep your loved ones out of such scenarios. The lawyer will know how to properly word your estate plans so that you can possibly get around any of the laws that would have taken hold had you left your estate to chance.
Attorneys Make You Aware Of The Law
The saying, "ignorance is no excuse in the law" certainly applies to estate planning. Just because you are unaware of a certain law doesn't mean that your estate won't be held to it. Buying a do-it-yourself estate planning kit isn't going to be enough to help you gain the awareness that you need to do it right.
You want your estate to be so well-thought out and planned that the distribution process is a breeze. Estate planning attorneys can help you achieve this so you can have the peace of mind that you seek. To learn more, contact a law firm like Abom & Kutulakis LLP.
