Hello

No advice, but some things you might want to ask about:

Revocable living trust: How does it work, how to put property in and out, does property need to be deeded in your personal name?

Beneficiaries: Update them, some one of everything, or different people?

Guardians for the kids - just in case. How much money would guardians have access to, and with what (or no) oversight / need to justify expenses to someone else.

Minimum age / distribution for kids to inherit your assets: Such as, only get $ X.xx if they are under age 18, or get the balance after they have finished higher education, or at a certain age, or whatever.

Will: Some things, like guardians, can only be done in a will.

Your assets and personal goals will vary. Just offering a couple things to expect to come up in the conversation. Good for you to make a plan. Don't forget to review it and update it (ask how often), too.

Know who will raise your kids if the most awful event happens. Have them named, including SSN.

Husband and I were both military. We Had to do this as soon as we learned I was pregnant, even though I was planning on getting out of military soon. It was tough to think about, the couple we asked needed time to think about it, and they should. Never an easy subject.

I remember being so thankful when our youngest turned 18. Of course, our kids still need us, but it was a feeling of relief that we got them to adulthood. Being in the military made that on our minds, thankfully, loss of parents is rare for civilians. But should be given thoughtful planning.

When planning estate tax, consider creating an Irrevocable Trust and place a life insurance policy in the trust. That policy, when cashed in at death, is tax-free and can be used to pay all of the estate taxes if you owe. Your annual contributions to pay the insurance premiums can come out of the kids' lifetime giving amounts so you can avoid gift taxes.

Find out if your assets add up past the base level where the inheritance taxes and estate taxes kick in. You might be below the limit. If so ignore my irrevocable trust advice.

Last year, my wife and I set up a Revocable Living Trust. We have three kids: 12, 12, and 8. Our #1 goal was to ensure they were cared for. #2 was to ensure our estate passed to them as seamlessly and was shielded from taxes as much as possible.

We hired an Estate Planning Attorney we met through a close friend of ours. She works for a highly respected, yet down to earth local law firm that is steadily growing. Very personable...not ivory tower & $1,000 suits.

Our plan included the Trust, Durable Powers of Attorney for Financial and Medical, Wills, and Advance Healthcare Directives. She was very thorough and guided us thru the entire process, giving advice and making recommendations but ultimately left the decisions up to us. It was about the best experience I can think of while keeping in mind we were talking about our deaths.

Hey, death happens... ;-) Gotta be ready for it.

We paid $2,500, which I consider a good price for the peace of mind and counsel we received.

A few things to keep in:

Revocable Living Trusts (RLT) offer ZERO legal protection for assets. An RLT is just an "empty bucket" until both you and your spouse die. It owns nothing and has nothing in it, so you still need to take asset protection steps. That's a topic for another post.

When you both are dead, the RLT "catches" everything you own (real estate, cars, boats, bank accounts, stocks, brokerage funds, etc) as long as you set each item up properly prior to dying. The Trust's assets are then distributed to your heirs by the Trustee and according to a schedule and any specific conditions you set up.

To set up various items:

You will have to file a Beneficiary Deed for each parcel of real estate owned so that it "dumps" into your trust upon death. A work around: if you own your real estate in an LLC, the LLC can have its articles of organization set up to be transferred to the Trust, avoiding the need to file beneficiary deeds. Then the Trustee can either sell that parcels on behalf of the LLC and distribute the proceeds to heirs, or divvy up the properties to heirs.

For titled motor vehicles: list your Trust as the entity in a Title on Death (TOD).

For bank accounts, life insurance policies, and brokerage accounts: list your Trust as Payable on Death (POD).

There's a lot of work and careful planning that goes into an estate plan, and you have to keep an eye on them and make changes every so often. But I think they are a must for anyone with a net worth over $1/4 million, for simplifying the process for your heirs during a time of grief.

We are going through this again (did them in 2008...time for a refresh) now. We have properties in an LLC. There are some key aspects of the "operating agreement" for the LLC that you should make sure are there to transfer ownership should the owner of the LLC die.

Also try to get as many assets as you can to pass via beneficiary, as these will bypass probate and therefore minimize complications. For example, either put both names on car titles or have a TOD (Transfer On Death) provision on the title if your state allows (Indiana does).

Also, I recommend having a file in your house or PO Box labeled "IF I DIE" and tell a couple trustworthy people how to get to it in the event of your death. In this file you can have a list of key bank accounts, passwords, locations of other items/documents, etc. Include cremation/burial choices, insurance policies, and any "notes" you want to have your heirs read.

Jason,

-be diligent to finsh and sign the wills. Too easy to procrastinate after the appointment.

-BIG: if Wifey and I are gone my kids are instant multi millionaires. So, kids do not have access to money until age 35. By then they are established and mature. A trustee pays their bills for basic living, basic car, and basic in state college.

-a SPECIFIC method spelled out clearly as to how the estate is valued and divided. I habe seen too many family arguments necause the parents’ wills were vague.

An extended family member is trying to resolve a vague will. 4 heirs are each spending 5 digits EACH on attys.

Even your own atty will drag this out based on the size of the estate. I believe it was Frank Sinatra’s estate that was totally eaten up by the attys. Nothing left for the heirs.

-anyone contesting this will is eliminated from the will

-our estate goes to MY children, each named. NOT to their children. If my children have died their share goes to their MARRIED spouse (not roommate). If not alive their share goes to their natural and FULLY ADOPTED children.

-most fights are over the “doilies and the dollies” - the sentimental items like Grandaddy’s shotgun. Like Hoosier said, we habe a red folder in the fromt of my desk drawer with our wills and list of sentimemtal items matched to a name.

-another system is to order an auction and each heir BUYS what they want using proceeds from the estate.

-when my parents were gone we did a round robin for household goods, collectibles, jewelry - oldest child gets first pick of one item, then second born, then third... each counted against our overall inheritance total.

There are questionaires online that can help you think about some critical areas before spending time (money) with the atty.