A blended family is a marriage between a couple and their children from previous relationships or spouses. Various issues, such as inheritance size, naming executors, and overall fairness, can arise in these families and must be addressed in an estate plan.
Without a plan, your assets will be disposed of by intestacy, which can result in ตรวจเอชไอวี and stress for your loved ones.
Invest in a Will
If you don’t have an estate plan, the state will decide how to distribute your property and appoint guardians for any children. This could result in family members fighting over the inheritance you were planning to give them, and it can also cost your heirs money in taxes that they weren’t expecting.
Many people prefer a DIY approach to their estate plans, and some excellent online tools are available. However, working with a professional is often best if you have significant wealth or a complex financial situation.
A will can help you plan for your assets, from sentimental items like jewelry to valuable investments. Your will can be as detailed or general as you want, but it’s important to include everything you own. Also, differentiate between jointly owned or held within a trust asset from those that will pass through probate (e.g., retirement accounts or life insurance policies). Your will may not govern these assets and must go through a different process.
Create a Trust
Many people overlook the importance of trusts, but this estate planning for blended families can help ensure that your assets are properly distributed after you die and that your loved ones are provided for. They can also protect your family from creditors and others who may try to take your inheritance.
When creating trust, working with an experienced attorney is important. A trust can be a useful tool for blended families and provide more control over how your assets are passed on to your heirs.
Another benefit of a trust is that it can be used for retirement accounts. This is an important feature for a blended family as it can avoid splitting the retirement account equally between spouses or children from previous relationships.
Additionally, the trust can be designated as the owner and beneficiary of life insurance policies. This can also reduce estate settlement costs by eliminating the need for probate, appraisal, and attorney fees. The trust can even protect your family from certain federal and state taxes (in certain cases). Contact them to learn how trust could benefit you and your family.
Create a Power of Attorney
Considering what to do with your assets, it is important to consider the future. What will happen to your loved ones if you become incapacitated?
A power of attorney is one way to ensure that someone you trust takes care of your finances. This is a vital document; someone with the skills and experience should create it to make the right decisions for you.
Unfortunately, many people do not create a power of attorney or update their existing powers of attorney when they get married again and have children from previous relationships. When this occurs, they may disinherit their biological children without knowing it.
It would help if you used a trust-based estate plan to avoid the inadvertent disinheritance of children. It would help if you were sure to update individual documents, insurance policies and workplace pensions to reflect your new familial status. A lawyer specializing in estate planning is the best person to set up these documents and ensure they are effective.
Create a Living Will
Failing to put an estate plan in place could mean your wishes are not fulfilled when you die. In addition, without an estate plan, your assets would be distributed according to state intestacy laws which could disinherit your new spouse and any children from previous relationships.
A Living Will is a form that outlines your medical treatment preferences if you become terminally ill or incapacitated. A detailed lifestyle will help reduce stress and conflict among family members when they may be most vulnerable.
It is also important to regularly update beneficiary designations on individual documents such as life insurance policies and workplace pensions. Changing these designations is an easy way to ensure that your blended family estate plan is up-to-date and reflects your current wishes. It is also a simple way to avoid the probate process and keep your assets private. This is especially important in a blended family where remarriage often means removing an ex-spouse as a beneficiary from the individual support and ensuring that new beneficiaries are designated instead.
Create a Health Care Directive
The estate planning process can be difficult, even for a traditional family. However, for a blended family, there are additional concerns that must be addressed. Whether you are concerned about how your assets will be distributed or want to make arrangements for long-term care expenses, estate planning is an important step.
In addition to a will, you may wish to create an advance directive, such as a living will or a mental health treatment preference declaration (or Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment). Illinois law requires that standard forms be available for these types of documents. These documents are not legally binding but will communicate your wishes to your family and medical providers during a crisis.
Once you have completed an advance directive, you must distribute copies to your family members, doctors and other proxies. You must also update them if your wishes change, and you must destroy any old documents. It would help if you also told your doctor you have an advance directive and ensured it is in your medical file.
