National Estate Planning Awareness Week

National Estate Planning Awareness week was adopted in 2008 by the House of Representatives to help the public understand the importance of estate planning. In honor of National Estate Planning Week, we wanted to highlight a few reasons why estate planning is so important:

• It prevents assets from being disposed of to unintended parties by default through the complex process of probate
• It can help you preserve assets built over your lifetime for the benefit of family, charities, or others
• It can help you accomplish your goal of providing for your family, charities, or others after your passing
• It encourages timely decisions about how title to certain assets is held, the designation of beneficiaries, and possible lifetime asset transfers
• It can prevent family members or other beneficiaries from being subjected to complex and time-consuming legal and administrative processes
• It can reduce confusion or animosity among family members or other heirs upon your passing

If you are interested in getting started on preparing your estate plan, or if you are interested in reviewing and/or updating your current estate plan, please contact a member of Gould & Ratner’s Estate Planning and Wealth Transfer Practice.