If you have never heard the term ‘estate planning’ before, you will want to carry on reading this because we are going to offer some fantastic advice. If you have recently gotten married or have been married for a while without estate planning, you need this information even more. Even if you happen to fall into the latter category, don’t worry because we have all the information you will need.
What is Estate Planning? – At its core, estate planning describes the process we complete in order to create numerous documents that explain where our estate goes after death. By utilising three main documents – durable power of attorney, last will and testament, and a health care directive – you can ensure that your estate gets distributed exactly how you plan after passing away.
Why Do I Need These Documents? – If you don’t do any of these plans and leave these documents untouched, you may be leaving your partner and potential children in the dark and they may not have access to your estate after your death. With these plans in tact, your estate will be left with your partner and your children and you will be ensuring their future.
Furthermore, you will also be reducing the amount of tax they will have to pay after you pass away if you plan everything early and have it all in order. If you don’t have these documents, a significant portion of the estate will be taken in tax and various other costs. If you want your partner to have the most money possible, you will need to have the three documents in place.
Estate Planning and Marriage – After you get married, your legal status changes in a number of ways and it affects how you earn, save, and are taxed with money. As a spouse, you can file joint taxes, share property, share income, get recognised as a married couple on a governmental level, and more.
As you grow as a couple, you will start to involve one another with decisions and this should also be true for estate planning. Whether it is how you want to be cared for at the end of your life or simply the distribution of your assets, these are important decisions that you need to share with your spouse. In addition to this, you need to discuss who will the guardian of pets and children, whether you should jointly own property, and who will be bequeathed individual gifts. By doing this, you can remove the need for probate and ease the pressure on loved ones after you pass away.
Summary – All in all, estate planning is vital in a marriage because it ensures that one of you will have a future should the other pass away. Rather than getting dragged into various financial issues and losing money to tax, you will both have everything planned for a stable future. No matter how hard it may seem to think about and how far off it seems, this is something that needs to be done!