Once you know exactly what you have to give away, you will need to look at the various estate planning options that are available to and suitable for you to plan your estate. Fortunately, estate planning is not as difficult or as complicated as it is often made out to be. In most cases, it simply involves a detailed consideration of your situation in life and how you would like your affairs managed if you become incapacitated or how you would want your assets distributed in the unfortunate event of your death. Once you understand the options available to you, you should be able to answer these questions a lot easier and use those answers to plan your estate. At that stage, you can use a number of devices and legal documents to put your estate plan in to effect.

Surprisingly, preparing the legal documents is often the easiest part of the process. The most difficult part for most people is actually deciding on what they want to include in their plan. This is because there are a variety of different issues to consider before finalizing your plan. At the very least, you must ask yourself (and illicit answers for) the following questions:

– what assets do I own and how much are they worth?
– how much debt do I have?
– whom do I want to give my assets to when I pass away?
– do I want to wait until I die before giving my assets away or would it be better if I did it sooner?
– who should I appoint to manage my assets if I am unable to do so due to ill health?
– who should I appoint to take care of my minor children if I become unable to care for them myself?- who should make medical decisions on my behalf if I become unable to do so?

Of course, there are many other questions that can and should be asked when deciding on how to plan your estate. However, for the moment the questions above are probably enough to get you stated on your journey to preparing your estate plan.

How Can EstateBee Help You?

For more information on estate planning and how to plan your estate, read some of the other articles on this website.

You can also check out our book Estate Planning Essentials. It introduces you to estate planning and shows you how you can make an effective estate plan quickly and easily without the need for a lawyer. You’ll learn about estate planning devices such as wills, trusts, powers of attorney, medical directives, probate avoidance methods and more. To help you get a fuller understanding, particular attention is paid throughout to beneficiaries, children, disinheritance, incapacity, estate taxes and inheritance taxes. If you want to prepare an estate plan, this book is for you.

If you have any questions about our products or services, please contact our  customer service team, who would be delighted to assist you.