The death of a loved one is always a trying time for the family. One of the greatest challenges is trying to figure out what to do with the deceased’s property. For many, a will has already been laid out by the testator. Since this is a tricky area of the law, it is known that most people tend to make certain mistakes. It is important to know what an estate planning is and the most common mistakes that people tend to make when creating one.
What is estate planning?
Estate planning is the act of transferring someone’s property upon that person’s death along with several other personal matter such as tax planning, among other things. The main document that looks into estate planning is the testator’s will.
There are countless mistakes that people make when engaging in estate planning. Knowing what they are can help from making these mistakes in the long run.
Common mistakes:
- Not updating your plan: Many think that once their estate plan has been laid out, then they can completely forget about the matter. What they overlook is that sometimes their estate plan must be updated every now and then. If not, then they are leaving out relevant information that must be contained in the estate plan.
- Digital assets: For others, they tend to overlook their digital assets. Many consider their assets, liabilities and beneficiaries, yet completely forget about their digital ones.
- Inappropriate trustee: A trustee is a person who manages and distributes someone’s assets. Failure to properly select someone that can be trusted can be very problematic since the trustee could potentially overlook some of their fiduciary duties.
- Excluding the family pet: Forgetting the family pet seems to be very common because people are uncomfortable considering their pet to be personal property. In the end, a pet should be considered in the person’s estate plan.