Estate Planning is a Comprehensive Process. It should not be undertaken as a piecemeal project, nor should it be done without full disclosure of your situation to your attorney. If you already have an estate plan in place, it should be reviewed every 2-5 years, to make sure that it is still complete and up to date.
It is also important to review and probably update an estate plan when you have an important life-changing event, such as marriage, having a child, death of a spouse or significant other, significant change in wealth, estrangement from a family member, death of a parent, or moving to another state (these are just a few examples).
Pre-need planning is a final piece of the estate planning process that each individual should seriously consider completing. Pre-need planning involves meeting with a licensed pre-need counselor, establishing your directions for the type of funeral, disposition (burial or cremation), and other final wishes, and entering into a contract for the provision of these services at the time. This process is especially critical for those planning for Medicaid eligibility, as it is a legal “spend-down” of assets to qualify for Medicaid. At Chechele Law, we refer our clients to the premier provider of pre-need planning services in the United States and Canada, and we offer our facilities to our clients for this meeting, as a courtesy, because we feel so strongly about the need to complete your comprehensive estate plan by establishing a pre-need plan.
It is never a good idea to leave estate planning to chance, or to try to save money by doing an estate plan yourself by procuring documents on the internet. You don’t know what you don’t know about this critical process, and if you make an error, or create a document that is not legally sufficient, you still have nothing in place.
Our Process
Our process for estate planning involves three steps, to make it very simple and painless for our clients to complete a plan. The first involves completing an estate planning worksheet. The second involves our analysis of your information, and a meeting, or phone conference, in which we make a recommendation of what types of documents are appropriate for you, and most importantly, we give a firm fee quote at that time. There is no charge for the analysis process. After we are in agreement to proceed, we will create your documents and meet with you (or do so by mail, with detailed instructions), to review and properly execute your documents. If you have a trust, we will assist you in completing the funding of the trust.
After you have established your estate plan with our firm, we will request that you return for a follow-up meeting to review your documents, and determine if any changes are needed. Again, there is no charge for this process, unless we need to prepare some form of update, and once again, you will be given a firm fee quote before we proceed.
Estate planning is critical for every person over the age of 18, to protect themselves, their families, and their legacy. Please consider beginning your process immediately, whether it is an update of an existing plan, or the establishment of a plan for the very first time. Request an estate planning worksheet, and get started with your process today.
Fill out this form to request an estate planning worksheet.