I recently had the honor of contributing to a book about estate planning geared towards the everyday reader – The Complete Guide to Organizing Your Records for Estate Planning by John N. Peragine, Jr. I’ve put a link up to the book on the right column of this blog for a few weeks now but hadn’t had the chance to really talk about it.
So here are some of my excerpts from the book:
- “A well-written business plan and business succession plan is important in closely held businesses. In addition, life insurance policies can help family members continue your business when you are no longer around to take care of it”
- “Durable powers of attorneys and any trust documents should contain an incapacity clause to ensure that they will continue to be legal and effective when you need them the most. Estate planning documents not only tell people where your things should go after you pass away, but a good estate plan will help you while you’re still alive.”
- “Medical directives or living wills are a necessity. After the Terry Shiavo incident, everyone should see the importance of executing a health care proxy and living will. Because in some states, a living will is not binding and your health care proxy can make decisions on your behalf despite your wishes, it is still important to have a living will. It is an instrument that guides your proxy or doctors and articulates your wishes when you do not have the ability to communicate them.”
- “You can have a will without a trust, but you cannot have a trust without a will.”
- “There are some situations where probate may be preferred. One such situation is when you know that your family will fight over assets and are a very contentious family. In that situation, you actually might prefer a court to probate your estate so that there won’t be any arguments, or any arguments could be settled by the court during probate.”
For a more complete understanding of estate planning, you can purchase the book by clicking on the book cover to the right or by clicking here.
