Estate Planning Checklist

A Checklist for Comprehensive Estate Planning

An effective estate plan is vital to ensuring you provide for loved ones and distribute assets according to your final wishes. Without an established estate plan in place at the time of your passing, your assets may be tied up in lengthy public court proceedings.

At Butler Law, we take our clients’ concerns to heart and help them craft an estate plan that will ease the process of distributing the assets they spent a lifetime accumulating.

Crucial Elements of An Effective Estate Plan

An estate plan should include the following critical components:

• Last will and testament: Helps ensure that your probate assets are distributed to the person(s) you want them to go to.

• Health care and durable powers of attorney: Authorize a trusted individual(s) to make decisions concerning your medical care and legal and financial needs in the event you become incapacitated.

• Living will: Covers decisions concerning end-of-life care and termination of life support.

• Beneficiary designations: Covers financial and life insurance accounts, including 401(k), IRA, stocks, mutual funds, checking and savings, etc.

• Trust: Holds title to your assets and avoids probate administration. In addition, depending on the type of trust created, the assets held in trust may be protected from creditors, divorces and second-family issues.

With over 13 years of experience, attorney Dan Butler will help guide clients through the complexities of estate planning in Myrtle Beach and surrounding areas.

Professional Legal Services To Update Existing Estate Plans

It is important to review estate plans periodically due to changes in laws and in life situations generally. As the circumstances of your life progress and change, you may wish to modify your estate plan to address one or more of the following situations:

• Divorce and remarriage

• Significant changes in inheritance tax laws

• Out-of-state moves

• The marriage of a beneficiary

• Purchasing or establishing a new business

• Diagnosis of a severe medical condition

• Planning for nursing home admission at least five years out

• A significant change in financial status such as the inheritance of money or property

• Death of a family member

Contact Us Today To Initiate Your Estate Plan

We understand that estate planning can often be an emotional process for our clients. Lawyer Dan Butler listens attentively to clients' concerns and offers different options available to achieve the clients' estate planning goals. Give us a call and make an appointment to come to our office for a free initial consultation. You may also complete our contact form online.