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Walnut
Creek Office San
Francisco Office 3000 Citrus Circle 425 Market Street Suite 207 22nd Floor (925) 934-6320 (800) 464-6595 E-Mail Mail Alchemy@Astound.net P.O. Box 30305 Fax (925) 934-6325 Walnut Creek, CA 94597 http://www.rexcrandell.com USA |
RE: A MESSAGE FROM REX
CRANDELL ABOUT ESTATE PLANNING.
Between now
and the end of the year would be a good time to take care of any estate
planning needs and objectives that you may have related to transferring your
estate to your beneficiaries.
Estate
planning normally includes preparing a current Last Will and Testament, creating a Revocable Living Trust to avoid probate,
preparing an Advance
Health Care Directive - Durable Power of Attorney Form to take care of your
medical decisions should you become incapacitated, and preparing a Durable Power
of Attorney Form to allow for your Financial Management
responsibilities if you are unable to take care of them yourself. The best time to consider these issues is
well in advance of any pressing need to take care of this long-term planning. You will need to answer questions relating
to who will receive benefits from your estate after you are gone.
Many people think that
a Will is the best way to transfer assets at death. In my opinion, a Will is an outdated, costly, and time-consuming
way to transfer assets to heirs. The
reason for this is that a Will must be processed as a probate in the county
where the person resides. The probate
process frequently costs from $25,000 to $35,000 in processing fees. Probate freezes all estate assets under
strict court control for 11-18 months or more.
The probate information becomes a public record of all of your private
details. Because the information is
made public, marketing companies frequently target beneficiaries of estates for
a variety of sales offers. The entire
probate process can be easily avoided if a person simply creates a living
trust to transfer his or her assets to heirs and merely registers the
assets in the name of the trust. When
you have a living trust, a Last Will and Testament can be prepared to handle
only a few assets that are hopefully below the value that would require a
probate court proceeding.
Having
a revocable living trust does NOT
eliminate
all estate administration issues for the successor trustee after someone passes
away. However, the amount and level of
detail needed to administer an estate that has a revocable living trust as the
primary estate planning tool takes significantly less time and effort on the
part of the trustee than a California State Superior Court & judge-supervised
Probate processing of a Will requires.
We
provide the services of estate planning for our clients. We take care of all document preparation,
using information we gather from clients about their wishes regarding the
disposition of their estates and the distribution of their assets to
beneficiaries and loved ones who survive them.
Please
call our office to set an appointment to discuss your estate planning
objectives. We can discuss fees for
estate planning services at that time.
If you choose not to utilize our services in the creation and
implementation of your estate plan, there will be no cost or obligation on your
part for our initial meeting to discuss your long-range objectives. It is recommended that you obtain our Estate Planning
Questionnaire & Organizer Forms prior to your
appointment. The estate planning
questionnaire provides a place for you to list your assets and identify your
beneficiaries so that enough information will be available to get an overview
of your estate planning needs and desires.
Please
contact our office to schedule your no-obligation estate planning meeting. Call now, so that your estate plan can be
designed, implemented, and completed before the end of this year. Do not delay. Your beneficiaries will appreciate your advance planning in this
area.
I look
forward to hearing from you soon.
Very
truly yours,
Rex L. Crandell
