Placer Estate Planning Lawyer
Placer Estate Planning Attorney
Estate planning is legally preparing for a future beyond your own lifetime, and it can be a stressful and difficult topic to focus on. A solid estate plan is necessary, however, for anyone who wishes to protect their legacy and family. Your business interests, children’s education funding, healthcare decisions, and matters related to your home and other property are all issues that can be decided prior to your incapacitation or death so that your assets can be handled according to your exact wishes.
An experienced Placer County estate planning lawyer can minimize the stress and time requirements of developing and implementing a legally binding estate plan. Even if your assets are large or you have a complex inheritance situation to resolve, McCunn Law can help you navigate the California courts, protect your life’s work, and continue to support your family well beyond your lifetime. This is achieved with a completely personalized approach to every case. Your estate plan may involve a combination of wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and other legal tools relevant to your situation.
Giving your family the peace and resources they need to focus on healing is a tremendously meaningful gift. A complete estate plan that avoids or expedites the probate court process can achieve this. A detailed estate plan can also limit the ability of opportunistic third parties or estranged family members to insinuate themselves in the probate process to access assets not intended for them. When you leave behind a comprehensive McCunn Law estate plan, your beneficiaries won’t need to spend hours in a courtroom just to receive their rightful inheritance.
A California Lawyer for Your Family Law Needs You Can Trust
In the case of divorce, death or incapacity, estate planning, or a minor that needs assistance with legal issues, you need an attorney by your side that specializes in family law. For more information, you can explore our FAQ page or contact us online today. We are also available by phone at (916) 773-6100.
McCunn Law — Your Placer County, CA Estate Planning Experts
The benefits of a quality estate plan are many. Here are some of the ways an estate plan from the expert estate planning and probate team at McCunn Law can help you and your loved ones:
- Peace of mind.
Your family deserves to mourn in comfort and to do so at their own pace. A comprehensive estate plan ensures this is possible. Your loved ones get the assets you have bequeathed them in a timely fashion instead of being forced to put their time, energy, and focus into settling your affairs and managing a tedious probate process during an already-difficult transition. - Lower costs.
While the services of a qualified estate planning attorney can represent a significant investment, it’s one that often pays for itself. The probate process can be a long, drawn-out ordeal that accumulates steep court costs and attorney fees. Furthermore, if your assets are not distributed according to your wishes, you and your family have gained nothing (and potentially lost much) by avoiding estate planning fees. - Protect your own rights and desires.
Sometimes people have a limited view of estate planning and believe the phrase is synonymous with a last will and testament. In reality, your will may only represent one aspect of your comprehensive estate plan. A complete estate plan can consist of multiple different legal tools, including trusts and powers of attorney that may come into effect during your lifetime rather than only being enacted upon your death. For example, you can establish guidelines and funding for your long-term care or file a legally-binding record of your wishes regarding critical emergency medical decisions.
How to Know When You Need Estate Planning Services in Placer County, CA
Even with fairly simple situations, working with the qualified estate planning team at McCunn Law gives you the peace of mind that comes with knowing your last wishes are legally enforceable. It also gives your heirs the gift of avoiding a lengthy, costly probate process— or dramatic legal battles among themselves — to obtain the assets you’ve left to them.
If any of the following situations apply to you or your Placer County estate, you want to seek expert legal advice from a qualified California estate planning attorney:
- High-value assets, such as businesses, homes and real estate, or major investments
- Unique assets, like valuable collections, intellectual property, trusts, or accounts shared with a business partner
- Complex estates with many different types of assets
- Complex family/inheritance situations, such as multiple children with multiple partners
- Complex debts, such as if you hold accounts with many different creditors
- Setting aside a portion of your estate for a charity or special fund, or the establishment thereof
- Specific needs or desires pertaining to end-of-life medical care
- Chronic medical condition making temporary or permanent incapacitation likely in the future
- Reaching advanced age and have not yet prepared a will
- Concerns that third parties, such as business partners or disinherited family members, might wrongly attempt to insinuate themselves in the probate process
- Desire to protect assets with a trust for future disbursement
- Inadequacies or outdated information in a previous estate plan
Estate planning services from McCunn Law are truly comprehensive and completely personalized. Whether you are planning for the succession of a multi-million-dollar company, divvying up a classic car collection among your friends and family, leaving it all to charity, or arranging care for a beloved pet, our client-focused, detail-oriented estate planning experts can guide you through drafting and filing all of the necessary documents.
Legal Instruments Used for Placer County, CA Estate Planning
Your estate plan may look vastly different from someone else’s, depending on the things you own, the relationships in your life, and your personal wishes. Because needs and goals can vary so widely from person to person, there are a number of legal documents that may be employed in creating your estate plan beyond the well-known last will and testament. They include:
Wills.
While wills are not the “one size fits all” estate planning document some laypeople take them for, they are nonetheless a crucial part of estate planning. Wills come in several varieties, including some that have implications while you’re still alive, but a last will and testament is a powerful, legally-binding guideline for the handling of your finances and property upon your death. While you may find downloadable last will and testament templates for a fee, these are often too generic to truly protect your assets, your wishes, and your family’s needs. A proper will functions by designating an executor — a trusted party who sees that the will is carried out to the letter. The executor usually receives some predetermined portion of the proceeds for performing this duty. The executor could be a trusted friend of the deceased, but it’s likely to be a licensed attorney in the case of larger, more complex estates.
Trusts.
There are several different kinds of trusts available, and each type works a bit differently. The trust that best covers your individual needs depends on various circumstances, such as what assets you’re placing in the trust and for what purpose. Living trusts, revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, and charitable trusts are just a few of the more common tools available to you when establishing a trust. Specialized trusts can also be used to set aside funding for special circumstances, future generations or to help restructure the tax burden involved with transferring your estate to your heirs. Your estate planning attorney can help you determine the best strategy for putting your assets in trust.
Powers of attorney.
When you become medically incapacitated and are unable to make decisions for yourself, either at the end of your life or during a period of serious illness or injury, powers of attorney can be used to ensure the right people are handling your finances and other important decisions. Multiple powers of attorney can be filed to cover complex situations when you need to break down responsibilities by area, such as assigning financial powers of attorney to one person and healthcare decision-making rights to another. A skilled attorney can even help you specify these rights on a detailed, asset-by-asset basis, such as by breaking up your fiduciary powers of attorney between a spouse and business partner so that each has access to the relevant accounts and financial instruments.
Advanced healthcare directives.
At some point as you near the end of your life or in the aftermath of a serious emergency, you may be unable to express your own wishes. This is why it is important to establish legally binding directives as to your medical care and other critical end-of-life issues. Your family may be struggling both emotionally and materially in the wake of your incapacitation, and you can give them a great gift by eliminating the stress of having to make critical medical care decisions on your behalf. An advanced directive can be a more powerful solution than powers of attorney. It allows you to make specific stipulations as to your end-of-life care rather than simply assign another party to make those decisions themselves.
Estate Planning Services for Placer County, CA – Beyond Wills and Trusts
Your estate planning attorney is much more than merely a resource for helping you draft a will. A good estate planning attorney is your partner for planning and implementing a fully comprehensive end-of-life legal, financial, and healthcare strategy that protects your assets, your family, your legacy, and your rights, even beyond your final days.
Some of the many things a client-focused estate planning attorney can help you and your family deal with include:
- Tax issues. Different types of assets, estates, and gifts may all be subject to different tax laws. An estate planning expert can ensure you are correctly filing your taxes and help you choose the correct financial and legal instruments to minimize your estate’s tax burden. An estate planning specialist can also assist in filing your final tax return.
- Avoiding probate. One of the main goals of any comprehensive estate plan is to keep assets out of probate court whenever possible. Probate can be a lengthy and costly process that devalues your estate and needlessly leaves your family waiting for their inheritance. A quality estate plan can get your assets disbursed on an expedited timeline with minimal court involvement so that your family can focus on grieving and moving forward.
- Establishing and administering wills and trusts. The legal instruments available to you as you plan to pass along your assets and settle your affairs are myriad. An estate planning attorney does not merely help you draft and file an air-tight last will and testament. They also go over the pros and cons of each option available to you for managing and disbursing each of your assets upon your passing. A trusted attorney can also make the perfect executor to be named in your will or trustee for your established trust. They act as a neutral party, dedicated only to the execution of your final wishes and not partial to any of your heirs or outside interests.
- Notification of interested parties. Wills and trusts are powerful legal documents, but the mechanics of our legal system still require someone to notify beneficiaries, creditors, and other parties named in wills, trusts, or other documents. Your attorney may also help you designate executors, trustees, or the beneficiaries themselves if you are uncertain about how to best allocate your assets. An experienced estate planning lawyer ensures all parties are located and notified in a timely fashion so that matters can proceed as quickly as possible.
- Business succession. If your estate includes significant interests in one or more businesses, comprehensive estate planning becomes that much more important. When you’ve built a successful commercial enterprise, your estate planning decisions don’t just impact your family. They could also have far-reaching implications for employees, business partners, and entire communities, not to mention your personal legacy. Business succession is a complex issue at the intersection of law, finance, and commerce, and it takes an experienced estate planning attorney to help you hammer out every detail beforehand so you can rest easy knowing the future is secure.
Contact McCunn Law for Expert Estate Planning Help in Placer County, CA
If you’re ready to seek help planning for the future of your estate in Placer County, Granite Bay, or any of the surrounding areas, McCunn Law is eager to assist. Contact us today to set up a consultation. It’s never too late or too early to protect the future, so count on our estate planning services to ensure your assets go where you want them to.
Legal Assistance
The best time to seek legal assistance is when disputes are still only minor agreements. This gives either party the time to re-evaluate their actions and determine the next move without breaking the law or acting unfairly. Consulting with an attorney can provide the information they need to steer them down the right path. In some instances, clients ask us to mediate a dispute between landlord and tenant, so both parties can come to an agreement without the need for battling it out in a courtroom.
If you are a landlord or a tenant who believes your rights have been breached or you have been accused and your business or reputation is on the line, turn to McCunn Law. We help our clients to navigate even the most complex legal issues to arrive at the best solutions possible. Contact us today at 916-827-3427.
“McCunn Law is a high-quality and highly knowledgeable legal team. I went into a consultation regarding child custody and was extremely happy with the plan and ultimately the results of my case. They create a plan with the client’s needs and wants in mind. Drummond is also great working with regarding what kind of budget a client would be able to afford. If I have any more legal needs in the future this is the office I will use every time.”
“McCunn Law is a high-quality and highly knowledgeable legal team. I went into a consultation regarding child custody and was extremely happy with the plan and ultimately the results of my case. They create a plan with the client’s needs and wants in mind. Drummond is also great working with regarding what kind of budget a client would be able to afford. If I have any more legal needs in the future this is the office I will use every time.”
“McCunn Law is a high-quality and highly knowledgeable legal team. I went into a consultation regarding child custody and was extremely happy with the plan and ultimately the results of my case. They create a plan with the client’s needs and wants in mind. Drummond is also great working with regarding what kind of budget a client would be able to afford. If I have any more legal needs in the future this is the office I will use every time.”