We all hope that we’ll die of old age, in our sleep, in the far distant future. For many of us, this will very much be the case and will only come after we have led long, happy, and fulfilling lives. However, none of us can predict the future and tragedy can sometimes strike when we least expect it. Unfortunately, untimely death does occur, often caused by illness and accident, and having a will in place is important to ensure that your family is taken care of in the unfortunate event of your passing.
Unfortunately, far too few people have actually taken steps to draw up a will here in the United States, even among the older population of adults living here. In fact, more than half of all people who are between the ages of 55 and 64 currently do not have a will – a staggering 51% of them. And the rates of those who do not have a will drawn up yet are even higher among people who are a part of the younger generation. In fact, very nearly 65% of the population (around 64%, to be more exact) of all adults in the United States do not yet have any kind of will in place and have also not yet participated in any kind of estate planning, something that might end up becoming hugely detrimental at a later date.
Drawing a will up can feel daunting, to be sure. After all, dividing up your life and giving it away can not only be difficult, but emotionally taxing as well. After all, almost no one really wants to think about a time when they will no longer be here. But drawing up a will is necessary, and it is a process that can be made easier with legal help. It is likely that you will be able to find this legal help with relative ease all throughout the United States, as legal help and the lawyers who offer it are more commonplace than ever before.
When seeking legal help for first writing your will, it is advisable to speak with a will lawyer. A will lawyer will be particularly well versed in the kind of legal help that you will need for writing a will and will be able to walk you through the process of it step by step, stopping or pausing when things become overwhelming. Fortunately, legal help can make the process of drawing up a will much simpler than the average person might even realize. For many people, legal help makes all the difference.
Legal help at the hand of a skilled and trustworthy lawyer is also likely to be ideal in cases of estate planning. In addition to having a will, estate planning is another important part of setting up your loved ones in the even of your passing. This process of estate planning is likely to be particularly important for those who have a considerable net worth or even just a good amount of property in their name. However, it’s important to know that if you have an estate that is less than $5.5 billion, it is more likely than not that your estate will still be exempt from various federal estate taxes, which is something that proves to be just one less thing you have to worry about at the end of the day.
For many people, getting a trust will also be important, particularly for those that have a total net worth in the six figure range or even exceeding it. Not only will this trust help to minimize the total estate taxes that are accumulated, but will help the estate to avoid probate as well, something that should be avoided as much as is really reasonably possible. Consulting a lawyer for legal help during this process can make it all the easier to understand.
And this is the case for most aspects of estate planning. It’s okay not to be sure of the importance of everything, but the proper legal help can help to make this very clear.
