Yes!

Estate planning is not about how large an estate is—it’s about maintaining control over one’s assets and providing a blueprint for distributing these assets to the right people, in the right way, at the right time. There may be sizeable tax mitigation benefits also. In short, estate planning is about preserving your financial legacy.

Whether your estate is complex or more modest, your ability to direct the dispensation of your assets depends on having a comprehensive estate and asset management plan in place. Even smaller estates will have valuable assets or family heirlooms to protect. But individuals often fail to appreciate the full size or value of their estates and what could happen to those assets if there is no plan in place.

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While there are certainly a variety of planning options available to suit each and every family’s needs, a basic estate plan needs five things:

1. Will,
2. Revocable Trust,
3. Living Will,
4. Power of Attorney, and
5. Healthcare Surrogate.

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Yes!

We believe that it is in every person’s best interest to have a properly prepared and executed will. If you die without a will (i.e. intestate), you risk your property and assets being distributed in ways you did not want. Florida’s intestacy laws will govern which members of your family receive what and in what order.

Having a will isn’t about whether you are wealthy or not, or whether you have sizeable assets to distribute; it’s about exercising control over the disposition of your assets and relieving your family of additional burdens after you have passed away.

Of course, the larger the estate the greater the need for planning becomes to avoid the array of complex tax and probate administration issues.

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Technically, yes. But should you?

Although you may be tempted to use free or discount online tools to create estate planning documents, these fill-in-the-blank templates will not and cannot provide you the protections you need to keep your assets, wealth, and family truly safe. They are designed to apply as broadly as possible, and, as such, do not reflect your unique circumstances.

Downloading a “simple will” from a service like LegalZoom may be very cheap, but it is not estate planning; it’s little more than a one-size-fits-all, auto-populated PDF. Do you have complex assets? Special needs children? Specific wishes for your long-term care? None of these will be addressed in such a document. Especially for wealthy families and individuals with considerable assets, the stakes are too high to “do-it-yourself” when it comes to planning for the future of your estate.

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Probably.

Anyone who has significant assets and wealth should have an asset protection plan in place to ensure those assets and wealth don’t get stripped away by a disaffected creditor. These strategies are especially beneficial to high-pay, high-liability professionals like doctors, dentists, or real estate owners because they mitigate risk and deny creditors access to money, property, or business interests.

Asset protection is one of the most critical components of estate planning. But, to be effective these plans must be truly bespoke. A comprehensive analysis of your asset portfolio is critical to develop the most effective asset protection strategy for your situation.

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Yes.

An estate plan is a nexus of documents and instruments that protects your assets in the present and ensures a safe and secure transition of your wealth to future generations. But properly drafting and executing all these documents requires specialized knowledge in a number of areas: tax law, estate planning statutes, business law, and more.

Estate planning attorneys understand the complex federal and state tax codes, trust administration issues, and estate planning laws. Plus, having a professional guide you through the process ensures your estate plan is complete and will actually accomplish what you want it to accomplish.

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