Failure to review and update can lead to significant costs and problems at death.  We’ve found that more frequent conversations with our clients often introduce information or concerns that the client had not previously raised.  We are then able to present new strategies to address the situation.  Sometimes, problems arise at death because things have changed, and the client has procrastinated about addressing the changed circumstances.  Of course, this is normal, as we often put off dissicult concerns, especially those to which we don’t know the answers.  Your attorney, however, likely does know the answers, and can guide you to the best result for your situation.  But, this can only happen if you talk with your attorney on a regular basis. 

To address these evolving circumstances, Walker Lambe has recently introduced an Estate Plan Maintenance (EPM) program.  Under this program, our EPM clients pay an annual retainer fee, in exchange for which they receive a set of services, including the following:  (1)  a one hour annual review meeting with their attorney;  (2) free revisions of estate plan documents dealing with changes in names or addresses for fiduciaries as reflected in any existing plan documents; (3) simple substitution or removal of beneficiaries under Wills or Trust Agreements;  (4)  participation in the Walker Lambe Wealth Maintenance Platform, a secure web based portal for tracking the EPM client’s financial life;  (5) an annual financial review for participants in the Wealth Maintenance Platform;  (6)  free consultations for the EPM client’s family in the event of your death or incapacity;  and (7) a ten percent discount on regular fees for probate and estate and trust administration at your death. 

Imagine the peace of mind you’ll have, knowing that you’ve updated your legal documents, looked over your other affairs, and taken the time to think about the future of your loved ones on a regular basis.

Families constantly build memories.  My childhood memories include driving vacations with my father, mother and sister to natural or historic sites like the Grand Canyon, Gettysburg, or Monticello.  Some of the best memories were they way we entertained ourselves in the car.  We tracked states on license plates, played word games, and joked about billboards.  In many ways, life was richer and fuller before a trip in car meant everyone wired to a cell phone, IPOD or DVD. 

My father and mother not only created great memories for my sister and me, but also built a lifetime of memories for themselves. We all value these jointly held memories, but there is another kind of joint memory that we need to plan for.  Often, without knowing it, a couple divides up various household responsibilities — including the responsibility for the maintaining a memory for the related tasks.  So, one person may take care of meal preparation, while the other person maintains the lawn. One person may remember important family birthdays while the other person pays the bills and handles investments.  Studies have shown that over time, spouses develop a joint memory, with the spouse who defers a task to the other – like remembering birthdays — not remembering them very well at all.    

Dividing up the work is what great partnerships are about.  However, it is also important that each person knows how to do all the chores, in case they need to take them on some day. In the business world we call this cross-training.  At home, it is essential common sense. 

As an estate planning attorney, I help people think about what will happen when the person responsible for money matters dies or becomes incapacitated.  Teaching each other the skills involved in the other’s chores is especially important in this area. Ask yourself:

1.     Which bills are sent electronically, how do you pay them, and from which account?
2.      Do you receive any automatic bank deposits, or pay bills by account transfers, or automatic credit card payment?
3.     Where is important financial information kept, and if locked up where is the key, and if on a computer, what is the password to access the computer or file?
4.      For online accounts, what are the passwords, user names, and account numbers?
5.      Is there any life insurance, and how does it work (does it have cash value, can you borrow from it in a pinch)?
6.     Do you each have “durable” financial powers of attorney, are they up to date, and do you the location of the document and how to contact your attorney for help using the powers? 
7.     Do you each have health care powers of attorney and know where they are kept?  
8.     Do you have a Living Will and know how it relates to your health care power of attorney?   
9.    Do you each have a Trust which affords each other a management platform for important assets in the event of incapacity and death? Do you have a Will and do you know where the originals of these vital documents are kept?
10.    Do you have strong, working relationships with trusted advisors, such as your estate planning attorney, broker, accountant, or insurance agent?

You have a 100% chance of dying, and a better than 50% chance of experiencing a period of incapacity.  When incapacity or death strike, it’s essential to know how things work, and where to get help.  Make sure you know the answers to the questions above. If you do not have current powers of attorney for financial and health care matters and a Trust or Will, make sure you get those in place. An estate planning attorney can help you.  In fact, when you work with Walker Lambe Rhudy Costley & Gill, PLLC, we will not only tailor an estate plan to your individual needs, we will provide you with a Portfolio in which you can easily track all of your important information, store your original documents for you, and offer you a secure web based platform from which you can access essential legal and financial information, and – at your choice, share this information with your family and professional advisors.   This year, Walker Lambe has introduced a new service to assist clients in planning for their “digital afterlife”.  With the number of internet based resources connecting to our social and financial lives, this new arena presents significant issues to be addressed thoughtfully.    

Take the time to make sure you know what you need to know.  You’ll find peace of mind once you do.

One of the primary reasons for planning your estate is to make sure that your assets go where you want them to after you’ve passed away. If you’re a parent, it’s likely that you’ll want to use your estate plan to make sure your children and their children are provided for.  Often, the plan is to divide the estate equally between the children. 

One caution we always offer to our clients is that planning based only on your current circumstances is likely to be short-sighted.  For this reason, we typically recommend against a Will or Trust that gives particular financial accounts or parcels of real estate to one child or the other.  Things change – almost certainly – and these assets will not be of the same value at your death as they are now.  So, since none of us has a crystal ball as what the future will hold, we leave instructions for our Executors or Trustees to divide these assets based upon the value at the time of our deaths. 

But what about assets we don’t want to divide?  For example, let’s consider the family vacation home.  All of your children have wonderful memories of time spent at the beach or mountain house.  These well cared for properties have increased in value over the years, are the place of a lot of family memories, and it makes sense for the family to continue to hold this property for generations.  However, with each generation, the family is larger and more spread out.  Will it always make sense to hold the property in the family?  As the generations come and go, how does the family manage the use of and care for these properties? 

A Trust specifically designed for this legacy real estate makes the most sense.  It can define who has the right to use the home and what costs they are responsible for, who handles the maintenance of the property, who gets to use the home at major holidays, who pays the taxes ad other bills, whether and under what circumstances the property can be leased to third parties, under what circumstances the property would be sold, might give family members the first opportunity to buy the property if sold, and determines how the proceeds of any sale are distributed.  

When you are planning for your estate, it is important to remember that circumstances rarely stay the same over long periods of time. A plan that makes sense for your children and their children  may well be obsolete by the time your grandchildren have families of their own. This is why it’s important to ensure that you build flexibility into a Legacy Real Estate Trust.  Even without a crystal ball, the experienced trust attorneys at Walker Lambe Rhudy Costley & Gill, PLLC can help you define a plan that is wise enough and flexible enough to deal with these changes – a plan that right for your family.

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