Many individuals put off their estate planning until much later in their life -- but there can be some advantages to beginning your estate planning even as a young adult. One of the major misunderstandings about an estate plan is that it's only for the older and the wealthy. Estate plans can be beneficial for anyone, for a variety of reasons.
You'll Protect Your Children (and Pets)
Many young adults without significant assets still have children and even pets that need to be taken care of. Your estate plan can govern exactly what is given to your children and when by creating a trust. It can also create a trust for your pets and indicate who you would like to care for them -- otherwise, pets are often moved to shelters following their owner's death.
You'll Have a Financial POA and Medical POA
A financial power of attorney order and medical power of attorney order are both incredibly important in the event that you are unable to manage your affairs yourself. Even if you are young, you can still get into an accident or end up in the hospital and unable to make these decisions. Financial POA orders make it possible for a spouse, family member, or close friend to take care of your financial affairs, while a medical POA gives someone the power to make medical decisions on your behalf.
You'll Have a Living Will
In addition to having a medical POA that indicates who can make decisions for you during medical crisis, an estate plan will also develop a living will which is designed to govern what occurs to you in the event that you are medically unable to speak for yourself. In cases such as being in a coma or being kept on artificial life support, many individuals have very strong feelings. These feelings may not necessarily mesh with those of their family.
You'll Be Prepared
One of the best reasons to begin an estate plan when young is because it's very easy to put these things off. Creating an estate plan now means your living will, power of attorney orders, and trusts will already be set up, even if you forget to keep them updated in the future.
An estate planning attorney like Lisa Cappolella Attorney at Law and a specialized accountant can give you more information regarding whether an estate plan is right for you. An estate plan is actually a fairly simple document and it's simpler, faster, and cheaper to do the fewer assets you actually have.
Share16 May 2016
When I started my first small business, I had no idea how much I really didn’t know. I was fully prepared to deal with customers, sell product and even handle complaints and returns. What I wasn’t aware of was that there is so much more to it. I was lacking the legal expertise to protect the company and myself. I wanted others to benefit from my experience, mistakes and lessons learned, so I started this blog. From employment law to the legal business contracts you’ll have to sign when you form partnerships, business law is complex. I hope that the information here will help you to be better prepared when you start your business so that you’ll know when you need to call an attorney and when you can handle things yourself.
