Estate & Legacy Planning
Wills, Trusts, and Estate
Are You Making Really Important Decisions by Doing Nothing?
Unlike other areas of law, everyone will be impacted by wills, trusts, and estate law at one time or another.
Many people assume writing down where their assets go after death, adding beneficiaries to policies or investments, or adding names as co-owners of bank accounts is enough. Unfortunately, it is not always that easy. Most people think that you need to have lots of money or property to need an Estate Plan. Those people are plain wrong.
To decide whether you need an estate plan, you should first know the answer to this question: “Do you know what will legally happen to you, your loved ones, your money, or your home if something happens to you?
Sadly many people don’t know what will happen until it’s too late, leaving their grieving family to pick up the pieces, forcing them to make stressful decisions about health care or assets, and causing additional anguish.
If you do not have an estate plan or if your estate plan fails because it is outdated or incomplete, your State has a plan for you, and it’s probably not going to accomplish what you want.
Here’s the bottom line: If you do not know exactly what would happen to everyone you love and everything you own, then the first step is to find out exactly what would happen legally and financially so that you can decide if the current state of your affairs is okay with you.
If you recognize that you should develop and estate plan, but have not yet put one in place, you have probably thought or said one of the following phrases to justify your delay:
- “I’ll get to it at some point”
- “I still have plenty of time”
- “I don’t really have that much so it doesn’t seem worth it”
- “I can’t afford a lawyer”
These delay tactics are normal. We trick ourselves into thinking it will be easier to address these unimaginable decisions in the future.
We dedicate HOURS to planning after school activities for children, vacations, accomplishing work deadlines, future career goals, home purchases or renovations, hosting events, holiday celebrations, and birthday parties. Throughout our life we plan, plan, plan.
So why is it that some of the most important planning you can do for your family and loved ones gets pushed to the bottom of your “to-do” list? Because these decisions are BIG and can seem overwhelming.
WE CAN HELP
How Do We Help?
We have created a process, to educate you so that you can make empowered, informed choices about what you want for the people you love through our Life & Legacy Planning Session.
Our planning process is designed to guide you step-by-step, reducing your feelings of overwhelm, educating and empowering you, and keeps you accountable to implement what you decide is best for your family to ensure your plan actually works. Plus we include substantial extras within every plan at no additional cost.
Here’s how our step-by-step approach works
STEP 1: Schedule your Life & Legacy Planning Session.
STEP 2: Complete your “homework” 3 days prior to your Life & Legacy Planning Session.
The “homework” helps us prepare to meet with you, but really it holds so much value in helping you get organized for the benefit of your loved ones. After you’ve booked your Session, you’ll receive more information about how to qualify for the fee waiver.
The homework will involve getting your important information and documents organized, so we recommend scheduling your Life and Legacy Planning Session about two weeks in the future so you have plenty of time to get your pre-session homework completed and returned, to easily qualify for your FEE WAIVER and receive your planning session for FREE. After all, doesn’t FREE sound good?
STEP 3: Attend your 2 hour Life & Legacy Planning Session.
What happens during the Life & Legacy Planning Session?
- Consequences of Doing Nothing: You’ll learn the answers to “what will legally happen to you, your loved ones, your money, or your home if something happens to you?”
- Explore Your Goals: We’ll discuss your goals and what you want to happen in the event of your incapacity or death
- Concerns and Solutions: You will identify any concerns you have about what would happen with your current (or no) plan and identify what you would want to happen differently to have peace of mind.
- Achieve your goals: assuming that there is a good fit between you and our firm, we’ll explore potential planning options to address your concerns and meet your goals, including a conversation about the planning process and fees to implement such a plan.
- Design your plan: Once you’ve decided to take action to address your concerns, we will formally agree to work together and jump to action as you attorney and trusted advisor, designing a plan for you on the spot.* You’re in the driver’s seat, making decisions about what you want to happen. You’ll even choose your own flat fee based on your individual planning goals. If additional time is necessary to address complex planning matters, a second Design Meeting may be scheduled.
Step 4: Confirm Important and Missing Information so we can complete your plan preperation.
We’ll be in touch with you shortly after your plan is designed to confirm important aspects of your plan, done in a convenient paperless digital format.
Step 5: Attend your Life & Legacy Planning follow up meeting to sign important documents.
At the conclusion of your first meeting, we will schedule your follow up meeting. Why? To keep things moving along, so life doesn’t get in the way of completing your plan.
You’ll come in to sign important documents. This is where we put a safeguard in place to make sure your plan is done correctly by ensuring your assets are titled correctly.
Step 6: Attend your Delivery Meeting.
At our final meeting you’ll get all your final signed original documents as well as digital copies of all documents. We’ll review everything together, check to make sure your assets have all been retitled correctly, discuss and review letters we’ll prepare to send to the important people involved with your plan, and conduct your Legacy Interview.
Beginning of our ongoing relationship with you and your family.
We see the signing of your estate plan as the beginning of our relationship with you and your family. After you sign your estate plan, we don’t just send you on your way. Making sure your plan is up-to-date is a critical aspect of ensuring your plan works the way you intend it to work. Because we understand how important it is to keep your plan up-to-date, we offer a no-fee review of your plan every 3 years.
Substantial extras included with every estate plan
All plans include:
- A Protection Plan for you Children, which ensures that your kids will never be taken under the care of strangers if anything happens to you.
- A family wealth inventory to keep track of your assets so none of your assets are left to the State’s Department of Unclaimed Property.
- Assurance that your assets are transferred into the right names, whether you’re handling it with unlimited guidance or it’s taken care of for you.
- Letters sent to the people most critical to ensuring your plan is put-in-place and your kids are cared for as you wish.
- A family legacy interview process to capture not just your financial wealth, but your whole family wealth, your values, your insights, your stories and your experience— the things that are most often lost when somebody dies.
- Free review of your plan every 3 years to make sure your plan still works for you and your loved ones.
Have questions about our process or whether you need to create an estate plan?
Let’s Talk.
Schedule a 15 Minute Introduction Call
Ready to get started?
Book your Life & Legacy Planning Session to start developing your comprehensive estate plan.
Check out our FAQ’s for more information
704.594.1146 | 1026 Jay Street, Suite B-17 Charlotte, NC 28208
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Meetings By Appointment Only
Licensed: North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, New Jersey & New Mexico
