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14 Most Common Reasons To Do Estate Planning

By The American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys

1. Designate who will manage your affairs if you become disabled and when you pass away.
2. Plan for Medicaid and its impact on your estate if you must go into a nursing home.
3. Avoid probate, during your lifetime and when you pass away.
4. Protect children from a prior marriage if you pass away first.
5. Protect assets inherited by your heirs from lawsuits, divorces and other claims.
6. Impose discipline upon children (and/or grandchildren) who may not be capable or experienced in managing money.
7. Provide for special needs children and grandchildren.
8. Insure that a specific portion of your estate actually gets to grandchildren, charities, etc.
9. Protect a portion of your estate if you pass away first and your surviving spouse remarries.
10. Address different needs of different children.
11. Prevent or discourage challenges to your estate plan.
12. Reward/encourage heirs who make smart life decisions, and prevent the depletion of your estate from those who do not make smart choices.
13. Assure an education for children/grandchildren, despite what they (or their parents) dream of doing with the inheritance.
14. "Brady-Bunch" family estate planning: assure the step-parent doesn't spend your children's inheritance and/or provide for a spouse without sacrificing the intended legacy for children of a prior marriage.