New York Estate Planning & Elder Law Blog
An increase in new types of family structures, new estate planning laws, and new types of assets has led to the use of many new non-traditional estate planning tips. Hopefully, by reviewing some of the non-traditional methods in this article, you will begin considering whether your estate will benefit from any of these strategies.
# 1 – Appoint a Trust Protector
One of the most difficult (although obvious) parts of estate planning is that after you die, your estate planning language will be permanent. A trust protector can help you make sure that your wishes for a trust are carried out. Some of the powers that you can assign a trust protector include making revisions to the trust and resolving disagreements among trustees.
# 2 – Ensure Your Password Is Properly Written Down
One of the new types of assets that must be adequately handled in estate plans are cyber assets. A fundamental estate planning aspect of planning around these assets includes making sure that your passwords for digital accounts and other virtual assets are properly stored.
Some people even go so far as to create a physical book in a safe and secured book to secure your password. There are also smartphone apps that can be used to log and securely share passwords in this way.
# 3 – Keep It Simple
It was once common for people to establish a complex series of estate planning tools to make sure that their wishes were carried out after death.
Current law, however, makes it much easier to effectively estate plan simply. Avoid having undesirable consequences or poor results by only utilizing the estate planning tools that are necessary.
# 4 – Make Sure Your Trust is Adequately Funded
After trusts are prepared by a lawyer, the trust must also be adequately funded by your lawyer to make sure that you avoid probate. If a trust is not properly funded, it cannot achieve a person’s estate planning goals and will be the same as if no trust was written at all.
# 5 – Understand the Role of Estate Tax
Unfortunately, some people incorrectly think that their beneficiaries will not be required to pay estate tax due to the $11.4 million exemption. As a result, these individuals do not recognize the potential limitations of estate tax when estate planning. It is important to recognize, however, that in 2025, the estate tax exclusion will revert to $5.5 million.
There is the additional possibility that the estate tax exclusion might decrease even further as time progresses. Consequently, if it is likely that you will still be alive when the estate tax reverts, you should take this consideration when estate planning.
Speak with an Experienced Estate Planning Lawyer
Estate planning law is complex, and non-traditional strategies can be one of the best ways to achieve your goals. To determine what methods work best with your estate, it can help to speak with an experienced attorney. Contact Ettinger Estate Planning today to schedule a free initial consultation.