Simple Reasons Why Estate Planning Is So Important
For many people, it seems like they devote more time to planning a vacation or where to eat dinner than they do deciding who will inherit their estate. Sure, estate planning isn’t as fun as booking a trip or checking out restaurant reviews, but without it, you can’t choose who gets everything that you worked so hard for.Estate planning isn't only for the rich. Without a plan in place, there could be a long-lasting impact on your loved ones, even if you don’t have a pricey home, large investment account or valuable art to pass on. Not convinced that estate planning is necessary?
Prevents Your Assets From Ending Up With Unintended Beneficiaries If estate planning was once considered something that only the wealthy needed, nowadays many middle-class families need to plan for when something happens to a family's breadwinner (or breadwinners). After all, you don’t have to be super rich to do well in the stock market or real estate industry, both of which produce assets that you'll want to pass on to your heirs. Even if you're only leaving a second home behind, if you don’t decide who receives the property when you pass away, you won’t have any control as to what happens to the property.
That’s because a main component of estate planning is designating heirs for your assets, whether it's a summer home or a stock portfolio. Without an estate plan, the courts will often decide who gets your assets, a process that can take years and can get ugly. After all, a court doesn’t know which sibling has been responsible and which one shouldn’t have free access to cash. Nor will the courts automatically rule that the surviving spouse gets everything.
Protects Families With Young Children Nobody thinks of dying young, but if you're the parent of small children, you need to prepare for the unthinkable. This is where the will portion of an estate plan comes in. In order to ensure that your children are taken care of, in a manner that you approve of, you'll want to name their guardians in the event when both parents die before the children turn 18. Without such a will, the courts will again step in. And this time it’s not to determine who gets a piece of Real Estate or artwork, it’s who will raise your children.
Stops Heirs From Overpaying In Taxes
Estate planning is all about protecting your loved ones, which means in part giving them protection from big tax hits. Essential to estate planning is transferring assets to heirs
with an eye toward creating the smallest tax burden for them as possible. Even with just a little bit of estate planning, couples can reduce much or even all of their federal and state estate taxes or state inheritance taxes, which can get very pricey.
Premier Private Wealth LLP 36 Milton Road Swindon, Wiltshire SN1 5JA 0844 351 0067 http://premierprivatewealth.co.uk