What Is Estate Planning?
An estate plan includes trusts, wills, health care directives, financial directives, guardian designations, and living wills. However, proper estate planning does not merely include the delivery of these documents, but the process of identifying the objectives sought by our clients and putting in place the strategies that help them achieve their goals. It follows that a proper estate plan is the advice and guidance that you get from a professional who can be a steward in the preservation of your wealth.
In a nutshell, our firm takes the comprehensive approach to estate planning, which includes not only the methods in which a person’s assets are distributed upon death, but also the implementation of strategies that preserve the most amount of wealth during one’s life. It follows that the most amount of wealth that can be preserved during one’s life can increase the overall value of the estate, which the beneficiaries will receive upon one’s death. Our firm also uses the various tools available in the legal realm in order to protect the assets of our clients from creditors and predators.
Why Do You Need An Estate Plan?
Some reasons for proper estate planning include tax efficiency during the client’s lifetime and after death, protecting assets from outside and inside creditors, preventing family feuds, appointing the right person to oversee the health care and financial decisions in case of a disability, and protecting children or disabled family members by appointing a guardian of the client’s choice in the event of the client’s disability or death.
Our firm is dedicated to crafting a plan that not only serves to minimize the tax consequences for our clients, but to also ensure that their desires are carried out accordingly both during life and after death.
How Do We Design And Implement Your Estate Plan?
Every client’s case is unique. As such, we conduct a separate analysis to determine what particular strategies are best utilized to not only protect the client’s assets, but to also minimize the tax liabilities.
Our firm implements a process by first assessing the client’s situation and understanding the concerns facing the client. Thereafter, we advise the various choices available to the client in order to implement the best possible methods for meeting the goals of our clients.
One way we help our clients reduce the expenses associated with their estate at the time of their death is by creating a Revocable Living Trust (RLT). Probate is an expensive and time-consuming process.
In California, an RLT avoids probate, which is significant because probate is also a public proceeding and the probate files become part of the public record. Therefore, family feuds become highly problematic in these settings, since different family members may feel entitled to a greater share in the decedent’s estate. However, transfers of assets under an RLT are generally conducted in a private setting and the provisions included in the RLT are generally executed according to the donor’s wishes.
Important Note: Chilingaryan Law or its affiliates are not rendering legal or tax advice by providing the content above. No attorney-client relationship is formed based on the information provided above. The above content is designated only for educational use. Accordingly, Chilingaryan Law assumes no liability whatsoever in reliance to its use. Additionally, certain changes in law may have an effect on the legality of the information provided above, and certain circumstances of the reader may vary the applicability of the above content to his or her situation.