Much of the culmination of your life’s work and efforts is encapsulated in your estate, which is why estate planning is important. Planning allows you to not only manage your estate during your lifetime, but also determine how it is administered upon your passing. This level of control over your assets and possessions imparts a peace of mind.
If you need estate planning services, look no further than Uthoff, Graeber, Bobinette & Blanke, where the future of your estate is our primary concern.
Clients choose Uthoff, Graeber, Bobinette & Blanke for our reliable, tailored estate planning services. We are meticulous in our estate planning work and leave nothing up to chance. We listen closely to your needs and desires in order to provide you with the appropriate on-point counsel and guidance you deserve, so your beneficiaries obtain your legacies without discount of probate and the attendant costs.
Whether you are starting fresh or need to update your current estate plans and documents, Uthoff, Graeber, Bobinette & Blanke has you covered. For over four decades, we have been protecting the assets of Missouri residents and are ready to protect yours as well.
Call today for a free consultation, where you’ll have an opportunity to get your questions answered. An experienced estate planning attorney is ready to listen.
The only time your estate plan can be set up is when you are legally competent. Estate planning done while you’re legally competent can stand up to court challenges if you later become incapacitated or pass away. In order to sign estate plan documents, one must have sufficient mental capacity to understand the documents, or the executed documents are not valid.
Every estate plan is a story to our firm. Our team is ready to meet and listen to your story and learn about the people you love and assets you wish to protect. If you are prepared to take control of your estate and its future, contact us to get started.
No matter your situation, we always seek to accomplish these minimum goals with all of our clients:
In every case, we work to simplify matters and seek the clearest, simplest solutions needed to accomplish a proper estate plan guided by your desires and needs.
Ultimately, keeping many of your assets out of probate will save astonishing amounts of time and money. When preparing your estate plan, we will identify and discuss with you the various ways to avoid probate (which is the legal, court involved process a person’s estate must go through if assets are not properly titled or set to be transferred on death).
During probate, the court seeks to settle all of the decedent’s debts, validate their will, and distribute assets to the beneficiaries. It is often a long, bulky process that can quickly chew through financial resources.
Probate court has no jurisdiction over assets not belonging to a decedent. When you put assets in a trust, you are no longer the owner of the asset — the trust is – even though you retain all the benefits of the assets during your lifetime. When you pass away, the terms of the trust will become irrevocable, so that your desires of to whom, how and when to distribute your estate are not in question.
Two types of trusts commonly used are revocable living trusts and irrevocable trusts. Using a revocable living trust permits you to change the terms of the trust while still alive and lucid. An irrevocable living trust does not. In both instances, you can retain the benefits of your assets’ income and direct them during the lifetime of you and your spouse.
Payable-on-death (POD) and transfer-on-death (TOD) effectively avoid probate by transferring assets upon the death of the owner to a named beneficiary. Accounts typically designated as POD include savings, checking, and other types of financial accounts.
TOD designations are most often used for assets such as vehicles and real estate. The beneficiary becomes the new owner of the property after a TOD occurs.
POD and TOD assignments can be used in a simple or complex estate plan.
Joint property ownership with right of survivorship is another method of avoiding probate. If a person dies while holding property jointly in Missouri, the other joint owner will inherit the decedent’s share if the property is owned with rights of survivorship.
Properly administered, your estate plan may allow avoidance of probate for all or some assets and matters. Whether you have a Will or not or a trust in place doesn’t determine the need for your estate to go through probate. The need for probate is determined where beneficiaries of assets have not been properly assigned or if there are contests among actual or potential beneficiaries.
Probate is meant to validate your Will, appoint the executor(s) of the estate, settle your estate according to your Will, and pay your debts. Before a judge can do this, however, they must first validate the will.
Wills are strictly scrutinized during probate for proper form and substance. Sadly, many are invalidated for legal deficiencies. At Uthoff, Graeber, Bobinette & Blanke, we are extremely meticulous with our Will preparations. The Wills we prepare hold up in court.
If you die without a Will, the legal term used is that you have “died intestate.” If you die intestate, you have no control over how your assets will be dispersed. Instead of instructions from your Will, the court must follow statutory inheritance laws that dictate who gets what from your estate.
In defense of the probate laws, they do provide a fair framework for asset distribution. According to Missouri probate law, a surviving spouse and your children will share in your estate. But what if you do not want your assets going to certain family members? Or not until your spouse is deceased. The solution to this problem of disparate distribution is to create an estate plan with an experienced lawyer.
A power of attorney is a binding document that gives one person the decision-making power for someone else. This often overlooked component of an estate plan can save thousands of dollars in legal expenses if not available under circumstances of incapacity.
Various types of powers of attorney include durable, non-durable, and springing powers of attorney. The terms of durable powers of attorney go into effect while you are legally competent and continue in force if you are incapacitated. Non-durable powers of attorney, on the other hand, do not survive your incapacitation.
Springing powers of attorney (a type of durable power of attorney) become valid upon the occurrence of a condition or trigger event. For example, you may have our team draw up a power of attorney document granting power of attorney to a relative only in the event you become legally incapacitated.
In most cases, we create durable powers of attorney for healthcare and financial decisions. Creating a general power of attorney may allow far too broad decision-making powers in many cases. Limiting the authority to financial and healthcare matters is enough protection to provide peace of mind for many people.
Our estate planning services put you in the driver’s seat. We listen to your every word when structuring your estate plan. No matter how much or how little planning you have done already, we can create a plan that will protect your estate’s future and keep you in the driver’s seat. Simply give us a call to take the next step.
Protecting your interests is our primary goal at Uthoff, Graeber, Bobinette & Blanke. With our estate planning services, you get to decide how your estate is handled when you become incapacitated or pass away.
We’ll give you the pertinent guidance and counsel you need to make informed decisions and fulfill your wishes according to the letter of the law.
Contact our office for a no-cost meeting with an experienced estate planning attorney who cares about helping you. Call today.
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