Madeira Beach Estate Planning Attorney

Fortify the Financial Future of Your Family

Estate planning is often misconceived as a far-off task to start during retirement. In reality, estate planning is something that should be done early in adulthood to protect yourself, your family, and your assets in the event of an emergency. Hill & Kinsella offers estate planning services with erudite attorneys dedicated to protecting your future.

Start today to protect tomorrow. Call our attorneys for a free consultation: (727) 240-2350.

Why Should I Start Thinking About Estate Planning Now?

As soon as you begin to acquire property, assets, and dependents, you should consider how to keep it all safe if something happens to you. Estate planning achieves this goal. By estate planning, you are creating guidelines for how to care for everything­­—who receives custody of your kids, who is listed as beneficiaries on your different accounts and life insurance or retirement plans, how your assets are distributed and more. By having these plans in place, you can enjoy some peace of mind knowing that all is accounted for should there be an emergency.

Should I Have a Will Or a Trust?

Ideally, both. Trusts and wills can be used to accomplish different things. Using them in tandem is a way to cover all of your bases.

Trusts are an excellent way to transfer ownership of an asset to an heir while you are still alive. By doing so, you reap many benefits, including:

• Avoiding probate
• Making it difficult to contest or call for a redistribution of the asset
• Having more control over when and how your assets are dispersed
• Having more control over who has access to your assets
• Reducing estate taxes on your transferred property
• (Usually) avoiding publication of the trust unlike a will going through probate

Overall, a trust offers some attractive reasons to include it as part of your estate plan. A will can be a powerful sidekick to the trust and make for a more wholistic estate plan. Some matters you can handle with a will include:

• Naming an executor of your will
• Naming a guardian for your children or pets
• Recording any wishes for burial

By combining the two, you’re maximizing your ability to guarantee that your life continues and ends the way you decide is best. Beyond personal decisions affecting yourself, you can effectively control how your assets are divided and distributed. Our estate planning attorneys are ready to help the Madeira Beach community create and protect the ideal future for you and your family.

To see how you can protect your family’s future, contact our elder law attorneys today.