Goals and Priorities
Identify lifetime needs, intended beneficiaries, charitable objectives, management preferences, tax concerns, business interests, and the legacy you want to leave.
A plan should accomplish your objectives
Estate planning is the arrangement of financial and personal affairs through asset ownership, beneficiary designations, and legal documents. Meeting minimum legal requirements is only the beginning. A complete plan should reflect your goals, priorities, family circumstances, values, resources, and tolerance for complexity.
Elements of an effective estate plan
A thoughtful plan addresses more than the distribution of property at death.
Beneficiaries
Decide who should benefit, when and how benefits should be provided, and whether special protections or incentives are appropriate.
Fiduciaries
Select capable, trustworthy people or institutions to serve as trustees, executors, agents, guardians, and other decision-makers.
Asset Ownership
Coordinate individually owned property, joint ownership, community property, beneficiary designations, transfer-on-death arrangements, and trust ownership.
Legal Documents
A coordinated plan may include a will, revocable trust, financial and health-care powers of attorney, directives, and documents governing businesses or retirement benefits.
Administration and Practicality
Consider the likely cost, delay, privacy, tax treatment, recordkeeping, and administrative burden during incapacity and after death.
How assets pass at death
By operation of law
Certain forms of ownership—such as survivorship ownership—determine who receives an asset at death. Transfer-on-death and payable-on-death registrations may operate similarly.
By contract or beneficiary designation
Life insurance, retirement plans, annuities, trusts, and some business agreements transfer assets according to contract terms or beneficiary designations.
Through probate
Property that does not pass by ownership or contract may pass under a will through probate. If there is no valid will, state intestacy law determines the recipients.
Coordination matters
A will does not automatically control every asset. Titles and beneficiary designations must be reviewed alongside the estate-planning documents so that the complete plan works as intended.
Review the plan as life changes
Family Changes
- Marriage, divorce, or a new domestic partnership
- Birth, adoption, disability, or death
- Changes in beneficiaries’ needs or circumstances
Financial and Legal Changes
- Acquiring, selling, or relocating a business
- Substantial changes in assets or debt
- Moving to another state
- Changes in tax or trust law