All you need to know about strategic estate planning services

Wise investors always set up a structure to determine what happens to their wealth when they are gone or incapable of handling them. This makes strategic estate planning services an important branch of wealth management and financial planning for investors. Most families in Europe do not see the importance of estate planning until matters get out of hand. At the demise of a family member, there will be cases to settle. These cases include; family fights for possession, legal cases, taxes, and government laws.

Estate planning ensures that your assets are safe and handed over to the right beneficiary even in your absence. Most times, we get engrossed in acquiring a lot of properties; filling up the garage with fleets of cars, mansions, and buildings, and an island to compensate for our wealth. It is beautiful to admire the rewards of your hard work, but it becomes saddening watching your wealth fall into the wrong hands. Without careful financial and estate planning, you cannot decide who has access to your wealth and how they handle your wealth.

Nevertheless, you don’t need to have a million-dollar reserve or its equivalent before you could seek the services of an estate planner. No matter your portfolio or net worth, you can enjoy the services of an estate planner if you have some assets or wealth to protect. As a beginner, the entire concept of estate planning services might look complex for you to understand. To ensure that you are properly guided, we have provided you with necessary information about estate/financial planning with important tips on all you need to know about strategic estate planning services.

What does an estate planner do?

Estate planners have the responsibility of managing your assets against loss. These services are important to secure the wealth and assets of a client after death or incapacitation.

Clients that seek the services of an estate planner have the opportunity to plan the process of sharing their properties when they are no more. The estate planner oversees the entire process of estate/financial planning, by ensuring the naming of the right trustee and proper will documentation, as well as helping the client decide whether they prefer living trust or testamentary trust.

The living trust is one of the strategic estate planning services that indicates that beneficiaries of the client’s wealth can have access to the client’s assets after a speculated time during his lifetime. This trust begins its full activation even when the client is still alive.

Testamentary trust transfers assets ownership after the death of the client.

An estate planner helps the family or client entrusted to his care in planning their estate tax payment. This also includes how they handle the probate process. Estate tax payment remains one of the fears of every wealthy family. Nobody loves to accumulate a lot of liabilities in the form of taxes.

Estate planners set up strategies that help reduce the expenses made on estate taxes.

Some of the best estate tax reduction strategies include;

• AB trusts
• Donations to charitable organizations
• Freezing estates
• Supporting your estate planning process with life insurance

What should be included in estate planning?

Before opting for financial and estate planning services, you must understand some of the important elements of estate/financial planning.

An estate planning service goes beyond the ability to draft and document a trust and a will. There are numerous elements that you need to achieve a strategic estate planning service.

Here are four important elements of estate planning

• Will/Trust

Wills and trusts serve as documented reports of how all assets should be shared. This is one of the most important elements of financial and estate planning.

Wills and trusts ensure clarity and transparency. This enlists all beneficiaries of your wealth and assets and the proportion for each person.

Planning and drafting a will/trust is a critical issue for everyone. You will be skeptical about what you give out to each person and how you do so. This is to avoid arising family feuds when you are no more.

To avoid the challenges that might arise from an ill-drafted will and trust, you should seek the services of an estate planner to help you out.

• Power of Attorney (Healthcare and Financial)

A durable power of attorney’s hands over power to a third party (either a person or an agent) to help you carry out all estate planning processes when you are no more.

Families are usually advised to have a durable power of attorney as this keeps your assets secured even when you are no more. Without a durable power of attorney, the court has no other option than to decide what will happen to your wealth when you are no more.

Your power of attorney cuts across the healthcare power of attorney and financial power of attorney. The healthcare power of attorney gives a person the authority to make healthcare decisions in your absence while the financial power of attorney gives someone similar authority over your financial decisions.

• Target Beneficiary

This takes into account all parties and individuals that will benefit from your assets. Some wills and trusts make provisions to accommodate your wards as beneficiaries. All parties involved should make the decisions for guardianship designations.

• Letter of Intent

The letter of intent is handed over to the beneficiaries. This states their responsibilities over the portion of assets that they have access to. This clearly states what you expect from them even in your absence.

Conclusion

The benefits of estate planning cannot be easily overlooked. Although estate planning could be seen as the sharing and allocation of assets amongst family and friends, there is much more to it. It involves making sure that the assets are properly split and handed over to the beneficiaries in your temporary or permanent incapacitation.

To eliminate the risk of making wrong wealth management decisions, we have set up a personalized estate planning offer for families.

Our family office is committed to helping you build the right estate planning strategy for your wealth and assets.