Easy To Use Estate Planning
Easy to use estate planning is focused on asset protection, which means preserving your property and wealth so they are not taken by creditors, predators, taxes, and other risks.
Estate planning comes in many forms. Your circumstances, goals, and personality determine which techniques are right for you. We make the complex details affecting your needs clear and understandable, and together, we wisely plan for and protect your future.
Easy to Use Estate Planning and Estate and Trust Administration
What is a trust? A trust is a legal entity that establishes rights and responsibilities for the property titled in the trustee's name. Integrated estate planning can rely on the use of properly drafted irrevocable trusts to protect assets and carry out wishes. There are many different types of trusts to suit many situations.
Everyone's estate plan should include Disability Planning because mental incapacity, temporary or permanent, can strike suddenly and unpredictably, or it can also occur slowly, as in dementia or a disabling disease. When not planned for, court proceedings become necessary.
An Advance Directive includes a health care power of attorney and a living will. A General Durable Power of Attorney, sometimes referred to as a financial durable power of attorney, permits an agent to act on behalf of the principal with respect to financial and property matters.
A Charitable Trust can help you make gifts to causes dear to you, often with dramatic tax and financial rewards.Elder Law is a discreet area of estate planning that addresses estate planning long-term care, insurance, Medicaid planning, guardianships, advanced medical directives, as well as right to die, terminal illness, and health care rights counseling.
For those without long-term care insurance or the ability to self-insure, Medicaid has become an important, perhaps only, resource. Medicaid Planning is complex since each state has its own interpretation of the law and method of applying the law. We provide services for planning and qualifying for Medicaid benefits.
Assets left directly to someone receiving government assistance can disqualify this person. from the program, which could be devastating. We can develop a Special Needs Trust that holds title to property or cash for the benefit of a disabled person, to supplement public benefits received without jeopardizing them.
Estate Settlement
Is probate always required? Probate is the legal process by which assets are distributed to heirs according to the terms of a will. New Hampshire and Vermont laws provide that only assets titled in a decedent's name need to be probated. This excludes assets in the name of a trustee, or jointly titled, and those assets, such as life insurance and retirement funds, that name a beneficiary other than the estate.
A guardianship is the judicial process sometimes used to protect incapacitated persons. Guardianships can be of a person or a person's estate, or both, and can be full, limited, or temporary. Many jurisdictions use the term guardianship to refer to conservatorship. In New Hampshire and Vermont, the court will appoint an attorney to represent the proposed referred to as the "ward" as soon as a petition for guardianship is filed.
Caldwell Law provides Fiduciary Services on behalf of guardians, trustees, and executors during the term of a trust and when estate plans are to be settled. As New Hampshire and Vermont lawyers, we are fully qualified to handle all aspects of estate settlement.
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