Get Your Tampa Estate Plan Ready Prior To The Holidays
Time goes by fast during the winter months. Before you know it, the holidays will be here. All the shopping, cooking, and decorating associated with it can easily take your entire focus and energy. However, as gatherings provide the chance to spend extended time with family members, it is also when you may want to address some serious issues.
Conversations about long-term planning and end-of-life issues are often awkward, but they are important to bring up. The holidays offer the perfect opportunity to discuss your plans with those most likely to be impacted. Our Tampa estate planning lawyer recommends documents to put in place now and how to start these discussions during the holiday season.
Tampa Estate Planning Tasks To Complete Now
Staying on top of bills during the holidays can be challenging enough, so estate planning may not be at the top of your to-do list. This is why you should address it now. It helps protect you, your assets, and your family, ensuring that you and those you love are provided for, regardless of what the future might hold. Towards the end of the year is a perfect time to review and update estate planning documents. This includes:
- Your will: Your will should reflect your currently-owned property and assets, as well as your family and your relationships with others. Make any updates needed to reflect changes that occurred over the year.
- Account designations: Go through all investments, life insurance policies, and other assets. Check their value, name beneficiaries, and make other important designations.
- Advance planning documents: These convey your wishes if you are incapacitated and require lifesaving care. Make sure to update your healthcare advocate and power of attorney as well.
- Trusts: A trust allows for detailed distributions among beneficiaries and aids in long-term planning. By protecting assets in a trust, you gain access to Medicaid benefits that help cover costs.
Discussing Your Estate Plan With Family
The National Institutes of Health recommends having honest discussions with loved ones regarding what the future might hold. Estate planning provides a framework to address fears or other strong emotions in a reasonable, practical manner.
The holidays are a perfect time for these discussions. Follow these tips from our Tampa estate planning lawyer:
- Carefully consider whether it would be better to talk to your family as a whole or to sit down with individual members.
- Convey that it will give you peace of mind to have this discussion with them.
- Remind them that when it comes to unexpected events, not discussing them will not prevent them.
- Keep your priorities straight. Remember, your ultimate goal is to inform them of your wishes and ensure everyone is provided for properly.
Contact Our Tampa Estate Planning Lawyer
For trusted legal guidance in putting an estate plan in place or updating existing documents, contact Bubley & Bubley, P.A. Request a consultation with our Tampa estate planning lawyer today.
Sources:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485451/
medicaid.gov/
