Best Estate Planning Attorneys in Valparaiso, IN

Estate planning allows you to consider alternatives and set up legal arrangements that meet your specific wishes if something happens to you or your loved ones. Quality estate planning is more than just writing a simple will. Estate planning also typically minimizes potential taxes and fees as well as sets up contingency planning to make sure any wishes regarding healthcare treatment are followed. On the financial side, a good estate plan coordinates what would happen with your home, your investments, your business, your life insurance, your employee benefits such as a 401(k) plan and any other property in the event you become disabled or die. On the personal side, a proper estate plan specifies your wishes regarding all healthcare matters. If you are unable to give the directions yourself, someone you choose would do that for you, knowing what measures you would like authorized.

The Association of Chartered Senior Financial Planners (ACSFP) offers the CSFP-Chartered Senior Financial Planner designation to legal and insurance professionals. This designation ensures that ethics, tolerance for risk and proper strategies are used when developing retirement planning and asset protection strategies. Michael T. Sawyier is a member of the ACSFP Advisory Board and recommends its programs for proper estate planning training.

The only time that you can create and implement an estate plan is logically while you are alive and have the legal capacity to enter into a contract. If you are unable to manage your own affairs or suffer from a disability that affects your legal capacity, your estate plan may be effectively challenged. Other parties may assert that you lacked capacity at the time you created the plan, or that you were subjected to fraud, coercion, or undue influence during the creation and implementation of your plan. To prevent these kinds of challenges, the best time to start an estate plan is now, while you have the ability to do so.

You should have an estate plan if you are the parent of minor children, y ou have property that you care about or y ou care about your healthcare treatment.

An estate plan uses several tools that can prevent the court from gaining jurisdiction over your affairs, such as:A living will or directive to physicians determines if artificial life support systems are to be used or withheld. A durable power of attorney for healthcare provides authority to a person you trust to make decisions regarding healthcare treatment when you are unable to provide informed consent. A durable power of attorney for property authorizes a person to act in your place and stead in the event of your incapacity. This attorney-in-fact can manage your financial affairs without any court intervention. A trust or family limited partnership holds property. The trustees or partners manage the property held by either of these entities. Both the trust and the family limited partnership continue to manage the property even if you are incapacitated. A properly prepared estate plan can enable you to avoid a conservatorship proceeding over your estate. Compared to the cost of a conservatorship proceeding, an estate plan can be far more attractive.