What is Estate Planning?
Estate Planning is drawing a plan or a course of action, for when we are no longer here, on the assets that belong to us. This can definitely be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be that way. On the other hand, good estate planning implies that you have control, as far as possible, about how your assets will be divided. It also involves you reviewing your plan from time to time, in order to keep it up to date, especially if you are accumulating assets and/or people that you want to include in your planning.
Why should you do Estate Planning?
Here are some reasons for you to carry out estate planning:
Provide for your loved ones. You may have a wife/husband, children, grandchildren, or grandparents or other family members that depend on you financially. In this sense, it is worth that you ask yourself, what happens if I am no longer with them or I become incapacitated? How will they be sustained? How will my children or grandchildren pay for their studies ?; Am I leaving a headache for my heirs? Are taxes due? Creditors?
Minimize the tax or tax burden as much as possible.
Protect your investments or businesses. Here factors such as political decisions that may affect your business or investments come into play; that your second or third generation does not bring the business to bankruptcy; If you have partners, how is everything resolved in case of your death? There are many variables to see at this point.
Where to start?
1. Make a balance sheet of all the assets you own, including real estate, bank accounts, retirement plans, among others.
2. Are there certain people that you want to specifically exclude from your estate? Is there a specific property that I want to go to a specific person?
3. Seek legal advice. This will allow you to analyze the different options available to transfer your assets.
What do we do?
Each client is different, in this sense, we accompany you at every step necessary to create your plan and put it into practice using the instrument or instruments that are most suitable for you. Among these instruments, we contemplate wills, trusts, companies, private interest foundations, among other figures that are useful and that are within the budget of the client.
Likewise, we carry out an evaluation of all your assets and create the best strategy so that your plan is also tax efficient. The latter we achieve by working hand in hand with your tax advisor or by providing you with one.
Schedule an appointment with us, contact us. At CLD Legal we are here to serve you.