Estate Planning Basics Attorney in Rockville, Maryland

What does a basic, yet complete, estate plan look like?

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Every client should have a Power of Attorney for financial matters, a document to designate someone to make medical decisions for you, a document where you allow doctors to talk to the people who’s making decisions for you – that’s called a HIPAA release – and, a will. A will is a document that says who’s gonna get your assets and who’s gonna be in control.

The fifth document that most – that many people need, is a trust, and a trust can be used for many reasons; the most prevalent is called a Living Trust or Irrevocable Living Trust, and that’s to avoid the probate process and to manage assets in the event of disability.

So, typically, everyone gets the first four documents, many times they get the fifth document, and in certain situations they also may have a document about guardianship for a minor child, or about cremation, about a pre-need guardianship document so that if you are – if you die or you get in a car accident, who’s gonna take care of your kids right then. Your will, which names a guardian when you die, isn’t gonna work. You need another document for right now.

So, those are the basic documents. As people get more assets and more complex situations, we will be creating other types of trusts – there are many different types of trusts that can be created – or, maybe an entity like an LLC to hold assets, or to minimize taxes in some way.

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Washington, D.C. estate lawyer Gary Altman talks about creating a basic estate plan.

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