Lake Jackson & Houston Estate Planning Attorneys

It seems like you can find anything on the internet these days, even free Estate Planning documents. You may be tempted to save yourself the time and money involved in hiring an estate planning attorney and just print off a few forms. Is a do-it-yourself Will enough to protect your family home and life savings? Probably not.

Don’t risk your family’s future by trying to handle this complicated legal process by yourself. Contact our Estate Planning team. We’ll take a look at your situation, talk to you about your goals, and let you know how we can help you achieve them. You’ve worked hard for what you have, and our decades of real-world experience can help you protect your assets for future generations.

Estate Planning

One reason a cookie-cutter approach to Estate Planning doesn’t work is that every family is unique. If your family situation includes divorce, minor children, no children, considerable assets, a family business, remarriages, a commitment to charitable giving, or disabled dependents, your Estate Plan will have to address the issues these situations can create. We offer the following services, tailored to your specific needs:

• Wills. With a will, you can name beneficiaries, designate a guardian for minor children, keep assets from certain people, and name someone to execute the Will. If a Will is an adequate tool for your situation, we will draft one that accomplishes your goals.
• Trusts. To avoid Probate and disburse your assets in a specific way, you will need to create a Trust. There are several types of Trusts, and our team will help you choose the right vehicle to meet your needs. With a Trust, you can plan for dependents with special needs, set aside money for college tuition for children or grandchildren, avoid some taxes, and save your heirs from the Probate process after your death.
• Powers of Attorney. By designating someone to act on your behalf in legal, financial, and healthcare matters if you become incapacitated, you will protect your assets and your family in a worst-case situation. Your Power of Attorney designee will be able to make healthcare decisions for you, pay your bills, file tax returns, and sell property.
• Succession Plans. If you own a small business, our attorneys can help you create a plan for succession that outlines the transfer of ownership or control, resolves liquidity issues, and treats family members equitably. When you don’t have a Succession Plan in place, your business will suffer and you may create unnecessary family strife after your passing.
• Tax Planning. We understand the complexities of the ever-changing tax laws in the United States and will help you create an Estate Plan that minimizes the taxes that will be owed upon your passing so that you can leave as much as possible to your loved ones.

The ultimate goal of any Estate Plan is Asset Protection. Our team will take the time to get to know you on a personal level, talk you through your options, and help you create an Estate Plan that gives you the peace of mind that comes with knowing your family will be provided for if something happens to you.

For more Information, give us a call today or use our online contact form and start your estate planning today!

Is Estate Planning a Do-It-Yourself Project?

We live in a do-it-yourself world. You can watch videos on the internet to learn how to do just about anything. For instance, you can prepare your own taxes at home with software bought at the office supply store while dyeing your own hair. However, just because it seems easy to do a task yourself does mean it really is. More importantly, the fact that it seems easy does not mean doing it yourself is a good idea.

Estate Planning may seem to be simple to accomplish with information available on the internet and online do-it-yourself services for tasks such as Last Wills, Trusts, and Powers of Attorney. As the saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know, and in elder law a misstep can cost you in time, money, and emotions from problems or conflicts created by you trying to do things yourself.

The situation is never as simple as you think.

Take a look at your life and your assets to see if you fit into one or more of the following categories. Check off as many as apply:

You’re in a second (or later) marriage

You own one or more businesses

You own real estate in more than one state

You have a disabled family member

You have minor children

You have problem children

You don’t have any children

You want to leave some or all of your estate to charity

You have substantial assets in 401(k)s and/or IRAs

You were recently divorced

You’ve recently lost a spouse or other family member

You have an incapacitated spouse in need of long-term care

If one or more of these situations apply to you, you’ll need the counseling and advice of an experienced Attorney. Otherwise, your family may end up in a big fight with each side paying attorneys (with your money) to sort it all out, or the state might receive the largest chunk of your assets.

It is not just about dying.

Most people focus on what happens to their property when they die. But what if you should become mentally or physically incapable of taking care of yourself and your own personal business before then?

Numerous options are available to address to these circumstances as economically and efficiently as possible from Powers of Attorney to Living Trusts. A Revocable Living Trust can be established for someone else to manage your assets if a time comes when you can no longer do so yourself. An Elder Law Attorney can explain these options to you so you have a plan in place for such an eventuality.

Doing it yourself is very difficult (and usually more expensive in the long-run).

You might think that you’ll save a few dollars by filling out that Medicaid application yourself or using forms found on the internet, but your family could be in for a rude awakening when they learn that you won’t qualify for benefits. The same holds true for estate planning documents if you attempt to create them yourself or with the help of some generic, one-size-fits-all software. Part or all of your Will, Trust, or Medical or Financial Power of Attorney might not be legally valid or won’t work as you intended. You and your family could end up spending thousands of dollars more after the fact to fix unnecessary mistakes than what a qualified Attorney would have cost you in the first place.

An Estate Planning Attorney understands issues affecting seniors and their families.

A Lake Jackson estate planning attorney has cultivated understanding and gained experience in a long list of subjects that impact seniors, including:

• Preservation/transfer of assets seeking to avoid spousal impoverishment when a spouse enters a nursing home
• Medicaid
• Medicare claims and appeals
• Supplemental and long-term health insurance issues
• Disability planning, including use of Durable Powers of Attorney, Living Trusts, Living Wills, health care decisions making
• Estate planning, including planning for the manage men of one’s estate during life and its disposition on death through the use of Trusts, Wills, and other planning documents
• Probate
• Administration and management of Trusts and Estates
• Long-term care placement in nursing homes
• Financial planning and taxes
• Nursing home issues including questions of patients’ rights and nursing home quality
• Elder abuse and fraud recovery cases,
• Retirement, including public and private retirement benefits, survivor benefits, and pension benefits
• Mental health law

Contact Us Today to Get Started

It’s never too soon to have a conversation about your future. Whether you are newly married, raising young children, enjoying your empty nest, or planning for retirement, we will tell you over the phone about the ways we may be able to help you protect your future and your loved ones. With offices in Houston, Galveston and Lake Jackson, TX, we can meet your needs from anywhere.