Did you know that you can leave behind a lifetime gift to your loved ones by doing the necessary work for your estate planning? End of life planning is not necessarily easy but it is so important and a great way to give peace of mind to your loved ones. If you don’t create an end of life plan, your state’s laws will determine who gets everything that you owned. 

Furthermore, a physician that you have never met might be responsible for making final decisions on your behalf and your family members could be stuck trying to sort through messy probate.

The good thing is that most of these situations are completely avoidable. Some of the most common ways to ensure that your estate plan minimizes challenges for your loved ones include:

• Name an executor.
• Complete a comprehensive inventory of everything you own.
• Think about relevant health care decisions.
• Fill out your living will.
• Name a medical proxy appointed to make decisions on your behalf if you become unable to do so.
• Sit down with an estate planning attorney.

Even if you don’t have a big estate, there’s still plenty to be gained from the estate planning process. Leaving the gift of careful planning for your loved ones makes things so much easier for them during a difficult time.

Knowing what to do and when to do it can give you a great deal of peace of mind and confidence about the estate planning process. Schedule a consultation with an attorney you trust when you are concerned about crafting an end of life plan in conjunction with any asset protection planning, business succession planning or estate planning.