Avoiding Common Estate Planning Mistakes: Insights from a Top Grand Rapids Attorney

Death is inevitable. When it does come, you’d want to be prepared. You’d want your loved ones to have a comfortable, safe, and respectful life long after you’ve bid this world goodbye. Creating a safe world for your loved ones is exactly what estate planning’s all about. If you’ve accumulated enough wealth, you’d obviously want it to be transferred to your rightful heirs upon death.

A thoughtfully planned estate plan helps you accomplish this. Through an estate plan, you dictate what’s supposed to happen to your estate, who’ll inherit what, who’ll be the guardian of your minor children, etc.

Without an estate plan, you are basically leaving these important decisions up to the state. Needless to say, estate planning is one of the most important things you’ll do in your life. However, understanding the laws and regulations surrounding estate planning, wills, and trusts can be rather challenging.

Mistakes during estate planning can cost you more than just time and money. It can put your family in unnecessary jeopardy upon your untimely death. So in this article, we would like to shed light on common mistakes that can happen during estate planning and how the top Grand Rapids estate planning attorney at The Law Offices of Sean Patrick Cox can help you avoid them.

Common Estate Planning Mistakes

Your estate plan can easily fall into a pit if you don’t avoid some common mistakes. For instance, many in America fail to plan way ahead of time. They put estate planning off until they are too old… not taking into account that death and disease can strike one down without warning. Secondly, if you are an affluent individual with boatloads of wealth to your name, you must compose a will or establish a trust with the assistance of a reliable estate planning lawyer.

It is estimated that more than 60% of Americans today don’t have a will or trust. Simply having a will or trust isn’t enough, you also need to update it periodically depending on changing circumstances. Most people, however, never bother updating these invaluable legal documents.

Another grave mistake that usually happens during estate planning is completely forgetting about taxes. The liability of estate tax can put a big hole in whatever you leave behind for your beneficiaries.

These mistakes can have dire consequences, with the final estate plan failing to serve its intended purpose. An estate plan riddled with mistakes basically means that your beneficiaries could spend the rest of their lives tackling legal challenges associated with your estate.

Not planning for taxes could severely deplete the value of assets you’ve left behind for your heirs. The absence of a clear will could also result in ugly disputes between your family members. They could spend years and a lot of their own money entangled in legal battles for your estate.

Simply put, these mistakes can subject your loved ones to years of financial, mental, and emotional anguish. Fortunately, all of these issues can be avoided with the assistance of good estate planning lawyers.

Insights from a Top Grand Rapids Estate Planning Attorney

All of the mistakes we discussed can easily be avoided if you have a good estate planning attorney guiding you. That is exactly what you get when you hire me – The Law Offices of Sean Patrick Cox as your Grand Rapids, Michigan estate planning lawyer.

Now I’ve been doing this for over 25 years. During that time, I’ve helped people with the sound personal and financial planning of their estates. The common mistakes you read about before in this article are something I’ve encountered many times in my long career. I’ve seen people make the mistake of only naming one beneficiary or not updating their wills from time to time.

If the intention of an estate plan is to ensure your family is financially secure after your death, these mistakes will only expose them to a ton of devastating issues. Take for example the result of not having a will.

Without a will, important decisions like who’ll inherit your assets or who’ll take care of your children will be left to the state and courts. Your assets may end up falling in the wrong hands. Not considering the impact of taxes on an estate’s value is yet another mistake that can cost your beneficiaries hundreds and thousands of dollars in estate tax liabilities.

Correct legal advice, thoughtful planning, and personalized guidance are what you need to avoid such mistakes. These are all benefits you can reap by teaming up with a seasoned estate planning, wills, and trust attorney like me.

Importance of Professional Estate Planning Help

Estate planning laws are a bit complex for people without legal expertise to understand. Therefore, it is in your best interest to seek help from a reputable estate planning lawyer. As a top Grand Rapids attorney myself, allow me to shed light on the benefits of having a professional draw out your estate plan:

I) Document Updating

An estate planning attorney ensures all documents crucial for estate planning like marriage certificate, property deeds, retirement plans, divorce papers, etc. are up-to-date.

II) Knowledge of State Laws

When it comes to estate planning, the laws differ from state to state. A local estate planning attorney will be privy to the laws and regulations specific to your state. They will create a plan that complies with these laws.

III) Customized Representation

A good estate planning lawyer will offer their services tailored to the circumstances and situation unique to you and your estate.

IV) Informed Legal Advice

 A seasoned attorney with their years’ worth of insight and experience to offer you accurate and relevant legal advice.

V) Will and Trust Creation

An attorney will draft a will or establish a trust with clearly dictated terms and conditions, thus ensuring your beneficiaries have easy access to resources upon your death.

VI) Tax Mitigation

Estate planning attorneys know of strategies to employ in order to mitigate tax liability on an estate. Some of the best Grand Rapids tax attorneys can not only reduce these taxes but also help your beneficiaries avoid paying them completely.

Conclusion

Estate planning is necessary if you want to make sure your loved ones are protected and have a happy life even after your death. That being said, it isn’t easy with most people making grave mistakes. All of these mistakes can be avoided with some due diligence and a good estate planning attorney by your side.

That is what we at The Law Offices of Sean Patrick Cox do. Over the years, we’ve helped many of our clients in Michigan prepare a solid estate plan that’s entailed:

• Peaceful transfer of property to rightful heirs.
• Defending estate against excessive government taxation
• Reducing state intervention.
• Helping prevent disputes between family members.

If you are looking for a top Grand Rapids estate planning attorney, we suggest you look no further than the trusted The Law Offices of Sean Patrick Cox.

Call us now to schedule an initial free meeting with our lawyers.