Securing Your Legacy with Confidence
At 3FG Law, securing your future and legacy is our top priority. Joanna Amberger, Estate Planning Attorney and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, brings the experience and strategic solutions tailored to your unique needs. We help you manage and distribute your assets according to your wishes, preventing court battles, avoiding probate, and minimizing tax burdens on your heirs.
Through our Client Care Program, we ensure your estate plan remains current with regular updates, 24-hour access to crucial documents, and ongoing support for you and your family. With Joanna’s expertise and our dedicated team, you can have peace of mind knowing your loved ones will be well taken care of.
What Is Estate Planning and Why Is It Important?
Creating an estate plan involves much more than drafting documents; it’s about addressing a wide range of issues to ensure your future and your family’s well-being. Estate planning includes not only creating wills and trusts to manage the inheritance you leave but also establishing powers of attorney and healthcare directives to protect you during your life.
When these elements come together in a cohesive estate plan, they become more than the sum of their parts. A comprehensive estate plan is a strategy to build generational wealth, protect your loved ones, and support your family. It’s about aligning your assets with your goals and values, ensuring that your wishes are honored and your family is taken care of even when you’re gone. An estate planning attorney helps you address important issues, from asset management to healthcare decisions, providing peace of mind for you and your loved ones.
Why Estate Planning Should Be Comprehensive
Estate planning involves creating wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and other estate documents. Individually, they solve single issues; healthcare directives manage your care if you become incapacitated while trusts and wills transfer your wealth in line with your wishes. Thinking ahead with a comprehensive estate plan covers all of your bases and provides answers to common end-of-life scenarios.
The Role of Wills
Wills provide clear instructions on distributing your assets upon your death. Besides dividing your wealth and property, your will can also appoint guardians for minor children and express your final wishes. That said, wills have one major shortcoming. They need to go through probate, a public process that often becomes lengthy and time-consuming. While a will is the foundation of an estate plan, it’s not enough on its own. You should pair your will with trusts to provide direct, reliable financial support for your loved ones.
The Flexibility of Trusts
Trusts are a flexible, private means of managing and transferring your wealth. They bypass the probate process, which is a major advantage for carrying out your wishes after your lifetime. Furthermore, you can tailor trusts to almost any goal. A few common goals of trusts is to provide for a loved ones’ education, support charity, or care for minors in your family.
How Can I Use Different Types of Trusts?
Trusts can cater to a wide range of estate planning objectives. Besides simply leaving money to a certain loved one, they can work around specific legal limitations. Joanna Amberger understands how to use different types of trusts to achieve wealth management goals that would otherwise be impossible.
Why Are Revocable Living Trusts So Important?
Revocable living trusts are active during your lifetime, and you can alter their terms as your circumstances change. They’re ideal for streamlining the wealth transfer process, ensuring privacy, and reducing administrative burdens on your heirs. Revocable living trusts can help a successor trustee manage your assets while you’re incapacitated or after your passing. In all, these types of trusts are the cornerstone of many estate plans.
What Are Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts?
Understanding Special Needs Trusts
How Do Trusts Effectively Manage Assets and Transfer Wealth?
Choosing the right trust can benefit your asset management and wealth transfer in three key ways:
-
Avoiding Probate: Trusts expedite the transfer of assets, bypassing the time-consuming and public probate process. This means your loved ones can access the assets more quickly and privately.
-
Minimizing Taxes: Properly structured trusts can reduce estate and gift taxes, maximizing the inheritance for your heirs. Trusts can also help manage generation-skipping transfer taxes and other tax considerations.
-
Protecting Your Legacy: Trusts offer protection against creditors and legal disputes, ensuring your assets are preserved and distributed according to your wishes. They can include provisions to protect assets from beneficiaries' creditors or divorce settlements.
How Can Estate Planning Address Unique Needs of LGBTQ+ Clients?
At 3FG Law, we are a safe space with experience and understanding of LGBTQ+ issues. We recognize that estate planning for LGBTQ+ clients comes with unique challenges and considerations. We use a holistic, inclusive approach to help you understand the issues and solve them together.
Legal Protection for Non-Biological Parents
Non-biological parents need legal safeguards to uphold their parental rights. Estate planning documents, such as wills and trusts, can explicitly name non-biological parents as legal guardians. Many states don’t offer automatic legal recognition to non-biological parents, which might result in the state choosing who the child goes to. Estate documents help you protect your rights as parents and ensure your child remains in the care of your partner if tragedy strikes.
Healthcare Directives and Power of Attorney for LGBTQ+ Families
It’s crucial to have healthcare directives and powers of attorney in place. These documents allow you to designate who can make medical and financial decisions on your behalf. LGBTQ+ partnerships often lack the legal right to make decisions about an incapacitated loved ones’ care or learn about their condition. Estate planning prevents outdated family law from keeping you in the dark when your loved one is sick.
Addressing Unique Family Structures
LGBTQ+ families often have unique structures that traditional estate planning might not adequately address. Customized estate plans can ensure that your wishes are honored and your loved ones are protected. This includes considering the needs of chosen family members, stepchildren, and other important individuals in your life.
Get Started Now
Book Your Initial Consultation
Ready to take the next step in securing your legacy? At 3FG Law, we’re here to guide you through every aspect of estate planning with compassion, professionalism, and personalized care. Secure your future and protect your legacy; book a call with Estate Planning Attorney Joanna Amberger today.