It’s deeply upsetting to think about your parents passing away, which can cause you to avoid asking them about their estate plan. But delaying this crucial conversation can lead to even more stress down the road.
You may not know how to handle your parents’ affairs if they haven’t discussed their final wishes with you or your siblings. Your family might also have to endure a lengthy, stressful probate process if your parents didn’t create a trust or will. Here’s a more in-depth explanation of why it’s so important to discuss estate planning with your parents.
Understand Their Wishes
One of the main reasons you should talk about estate planning with your parents is to understand their wishes. It’s impossible to honor your parents’ desires if you don’t know how they’d like their end-of-life care and funeral arrangements to be handled.
It’s a good idea to get your whole family together for this discussion so everyone knows your parents’ preferences and is on the same page. This can help prevent hard feelings and disagreements about how to approach your parents’ care in the future.
Make Sure Your Parents Have Estate Planning Documents In Place
More than half of Americans don’t have estate planning documents such as a will or living trust in place. Even if your parents have a will and power of attorney, they may be outdated. This can cause problems if your parents become incapacitated or pass away.
State laws and estate tax laws change often, so wills should be revised at least every five years to reflect the new legislation. Additionally, financial institutions may not honor an older power of attorney. In some states, banks are allowed to reject a POA if they believe it’s outdated or requires the attorney who drafted it to attest to its validity. It’s important for your parents to keep their financial power of attorney current so you can take over their finances without delay if they ever need you to.
Although it’s a difficult subject to broach, you should ask your parents if all of their estate planning documents are in order and up-to-date to prevent problems down the line.
Avoid The Probate Process
When talking about estate planning documents with your parents, you may want to mention the possibility of creating a trust. By creating a trust-based estate plan, your parents can help the family avoid the probate process after they pass away.
Probate is the legal process of reviewing a deceased person’s will and distributing their assets. The court oversees the probate process, which can drag on for a year or two even if the deceased person has a will. Probate costs between 3% and 7% of the estate’s total value, reducing the amount of money passed onto heirs. Usually, someone from the family also has to act as an executor of the estate and take on a long list of duties, such as filing court documents and contacting creditors.
Create a Trust-Based Estate Plan
Luckily this stressful legal process can be avoided if your parents create a trust-based estate plan through Trust & Will, the most trusted online estate planning service. Trust & Will makes it easy and affordable for parents to establish a state-specific trust. This ensures that their property goes directly to their children after they die and bypasses the probate process.
It only takes about 20 minutes to complete a trust on Trust & Will’s secure, user-friendly platform. In addition to protecting their assets from probate, the trust-based estate plan will help your parents get all of their affairs in order. They’ll be able to decide who will handle their medical and financial decisions, specify their desired funeral arrangements, nominate guardians for their pets, and more.
Trust & Will Makes Establishing a Trust Simple
All your parents have to do to create their trust-based estate plan is answer a few simple questions to customize their documents. Then they can download the final copies or get them shipped to their home at no extra charge. To make the documents legally binding, they simply have to sign them and get them notarized. All of Trust & Will’s estate planning documents are built by highly qualified attorneys, so your parents can rest assured that the wishes outlined in their trust will be honored.
Once the signing process is complete, your parents can transfer the assets they want to protect from probate into the trust. Don’t worry—they’ll still retain ownership of the property in the trust until they pass away. Trust & Will has a comprehensive guide to walk them through transferring their assets. Plus, the company’s dedicated support team is always there to answer their questions. For a small fee, your parents can even get a year of unlimited support from a licensed estate planning attorney.
Having a solid estate plan in place will give you, your parents, and the whole family peace of mind.
Reduce Financial And Emotional Stress
Discussing end-of-life plans with your parents can decrease your stress levels. A recent study by Fidelity showed that 93% of adult children and 95% of parents felt better and had greater peace of mind after talking about estate planning.
With a proper trust-based estate plan in place, the whole family can relax. Your parents can rest easy knowing that their wishes will be carried out when the time comes. You and your siblings will be relieved of the burden of guessing what your parents would’ve wanted.
If one of your parents gets sick and becomes incapacitated, you’ll know who they’ve chosen as their guardian and how they want their medical care to be handled. When your parents pass away, you and your family can focus on grieving without the added stress of a lengthy, drawn-out probate process.
Although it’s difficult to talk to your parents about end-of-life planning, it’s important to broach the subject. Encouraging them to get their affairs in order will give the whole family much-needed peace of mind. If your parents need help creating legally binding trusts, wills, or nomination of guardian documents, point them in the direction of Trust & Will.
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Vicky Monroe is a freelance personal finance and lifestyle writer. When she’s not busy writing about her favorite money saving hacks or tinkering with her budget spreadsheets, she likes to travel, garden, and cook healthy vegetarian meals.
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