The most popular estate planning option: doing nothing. The more technical term for this lack of planning is called \u201cdying intestate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dying Intestate: \u201cDying intestate\u201d simply means that you have decided to depart this world without creating any estate planning whatsoever, not even a will. While your family will be horrified at this prospect, your unintended beneficiaries, the government and the probate court, will be delighted.\u00a0 Because by dying intestate, you have allowed the government to draft your estate plan for you.\u00a0 As a result, they can tax your estate and impose other costs at the maximum amount allowable by law.\u00a0 Also, your estate will go to people according to how state law decides, not what your personal wishes may have been.\u00a0 For example, most married couples want their share of the estate to be used by the surviving spouse before the children inherit.\u00a0 However, if you have a blended family situation and provided no direction ahead of time, when you die, the court will only give one-third of your estate to your surviving spouse and two-thirds to your children from a previous marriage.\u00a0 Regardless of your family\u2019s particular circumstances.<\/p>\n
This is the most popular estate planning option. Almost two-thirds of us will choose to do no estate planning before we die.<\/p>\n
But this problem is exacerbated before you die if you have no incapacity planning documents in place. If you become mentally incapacitated and can no longer handle your own affairs, without the proper documentation drafted ahead of time, you will have to go through a legal proceeding where a court appoints a guardian to handle your personal affairs and a conservator to handle your finances.\u00a0 The procedure is oftentimes referred to as \u201cliving probate.\u201d<\/p>\n
And living probate can be a living nightmare for you and your family for several reasons. First, it\u2019s a humiliating process.\u00a0 You are declared incompetent in a public proceeding.\u00a0 Next, the court is in charge.\u00a0 The court will decide which people will manage your affairs; it\u2019s neither you nor your family\u2019s choice.\u00a0 Most of the time, the court will chose a family member, but that\u2019s not a guarantee and no guarantee they would chose the \u201cright\u201d family member.<\/p>\n
Because of this court proceeding, there is lag time in the management of your affairs due to paperwork and delays. Of course, these hassles can add a lot of stress to what is already a very stressful situation for your family.<\/p>\n
Finally, living probate can be very expensive. Typically, there are court fees, attorneys\u2019 fees, expert witness fees and accounting fees.\u00a0 Additionally, once your conservator has been appointed by the court, this person has to give an annual accounting to the court on how your financial affairs have been managed.\u00a0 This is true even if the court appointed your spouse or one of your children as your conservator.<\/p>\n
Doing nothing does not sound like an appealing prospect for your family. Remember, that is who you\u2019re doing estate planning for.\u00a0 It\u2019s not about you.\u00a0 When your estate plan is operational, you are either dead or mentally incapacitated and don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 Proper estate planning is for your family\u2019s peace of mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The most popular estate planning option: doing nothing. The more technical term for this lack of planning is called \u201cdying intestate.\u201d Dying Intestate: \u201cDying intestate\u201d simply means that you have decided to depart this world without creating any estate planning whatsoever, not even a will. While your family will be horrified at this prospect, your … Continue reading The Cost of Doing Nothing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[31,33,15,14],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-estate-planning-options","category-intestacy","tag-estate-planning-options","tag-intestacy","tag-intestate","tag-living-probate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hometownestateplanning.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}