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Safety, Products and Liability: A Legal Blog

Welcome to my blog. This blog is dedicated to helping anyone who is currently in the midst of a liability issue. A few years ago, my daughter contracted listeria due to poorly packaged food. She, thankfully, was okay, but we still took her case to court. I want all families who have been affected by liability issues to understand their rights, so I decided to start this blog. My beautiful daughter is now 17 and preparing to start uni next year. I have three younger children as well and an amazing husband. Thank you for reading my blog. Please share my posts if they help you!

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Safety, Products and Liability: A Legal Blog

What Should You Know About Estate Planning?

by Liesanne Martin

An estate is the total value of your real possessions. These comprise both assets and liabilities, such as houses, businesses, investments like shares, pensions, life insurance, art, cars, debt, etc.

Estate planning involves the creation of an estate plan, which includes documents that highlight how your estate is to be managed in the unfortunate event that you become incapacitated or die. Here are some important things you need to note about estate planning:

Estate Planning Lawyer

You need an estate planning lawyer to help you create a professional estate plan since you might not know the documents required in creating an estate plan. An estate planning lawyer will hold your hand from the beginning.

What Is the Importance of Estate Planning?

Of course, you have relatives or a family you might leave behind if you die. Likewise, you may be the sole provider in your family, and becoming incapacitated might mean your family will suffer. Estate plans are made to put measures in place that guarantee your family will be cared for if anything happens to you.

Some documents in an estate plan also cater to various decisions that you might not be in a position to make due to your incapacitated state.

What Does Estate Planning Involve?

Estate planning involves filling out various documents. So, the very first step is hiring an estate planning lawyer to help you gather the required documents.

The second step is filling out the documents with the help of your estate planning lawyer. These documents include:

  • A document that gives power to a particular person or company to handle your finances.
  • A document that gives power to a particular individual to make medical decisions on your behalf. Note that you may want to discuss various medical decisions with this person to ensure that they understand your wishes. 
  • A document that states what should happen if extraordinary measures are required to keep you alive.
  • A will

An important thing to note is that you might be required to update these documents regularly. Of course, when you are carrying out estate planning, it does not mean you know the date you will die or become incapacitated. Therefore, as your estate changes, update the documents to reflect the changes.

Estate Tax

An estate tax is charged if your estate exceeds a particular amount highlighted by the government. A qualified and experienced estate planning lawyer will help you know how much your loved ones might be taxed.

To learn more about this topic, contact a local estate planning lawyer.

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