Make it your New Year's Resolution to have your Estate Plan prepared!

Lots of people make New Year's Resolutions about getting their bodies in shape. But people should think about getting their Estate Plan in shape too! Having your Estate Plan prepared or updated might be the most important thing you can do for your family in the new year.

I recently worked with the adult children of an elderly couple to try to preserve and protect the parents’ wealth for the next generation. Both parents had dementia, which is what prompted the children to seek help. Unfortunately, the parents had not updated their Powers of Attorney, so the children were limited in what actions they could take on behalf of their parents. This led to a waste of family wealth which could have been preserved if the parents had simply had their documents updated.

In another recent case, a middle-aged man died unexpectedly. His widow and their two adult children assumed that the widow would receive all his assets even though he didn’t have an Estate Plan in place. In this case, the man had a son from a prior marriage whom he had not spoken to in more than thirty years. The estranged son ended up receiving a good bit of the man’s assets. The wife and two kids he had a great relationship with were sure this was not the outcome he would have wanted. But, because he did not have his Estate Plan prepared, his desires did not matter. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Intestacy Laws controlled how the estate was distributed.

Don’t let this happen to you! Take control of what will happen to you and your assets if you become incapacitated or die. Have your Estate Plan prepared or updated before it is too late! Make this your New Year’s Resolution! Your family will thank you for it.

If you would like a consultation on this or any legal matter, do not hesitate to contact Scaringi Law at 717-657-7770.