While adults of all ages should engage in estate planning, certain life milestones call for quicker action. Getting married, having children, and changing jobs are three important events that will impact your estate plan design. Here’s how they trigger the need to consult an estate planning attorney about wills, trusts, and real estate law.

3 Events Where Estate Planning Is Essential

1. Getting Married

Getting married means establishing new legal relationships, combining households, and making plans for two lives in union. Wise estate planning can include documents such as a prenuptial agreement, life, and disability insurance policies, wills, powers of attorney, living wills, and living trusts. Married couples also need sound tax and real estate law advice on numerous issues, including how to hold title to their marital home and other real estate properties.

2. Having or Adopting Children

It is prudent for adults with minor children or children with special needs to write wills. It is the only way parents can shape the way their children will cope if their parents should die while they are still young. Appointing guardians for their children is one of the best ways to care for children responsibly when parents pass away before their children turn 18. Without a will, the state, acting through a probate judge, will make those decisions. Parental estate planning can include trusts to protect and preserve property for their children’s support. Parents name trustees to administer the trusts until their children reach maturity. Wills can make provisions for seeing to it that guardians and trustees have every incentive to help surviving minor children with their medical, educational, and daily living needs, including the possibility that the children won’t have to leave the home in which they have grown up or the friends they’ve made in the community in which they have lived.

3. Changing Jobs or Starting a Business

Changing jobs can involve estate planning decisions about pension and retirement funds, including IRAs and 401(k)s. Managing lump sum payments for early retirement or severance agreements come under the estate planning umbrella, along with continuing life, health, and disability insurance coverage.

If you’re leaving a job to start a business, estate planning attorneys can offer counsel on choosing a business entity that maximizes tax benefits and exploring options for obtaining capital. Preparing a general durable power of attorney allows you to appoint someone you trust to make business or personal decisions for you, even if you become incapacitated. And succession planning is a “must” once you start your own business.

Whether you’re a newlywed, a parent, an employee, or a business owner, you should engage in estate planning. Offering more than 25 years of experience with wills, trusts, and real estate law, the attorneys at The Law Offices of S. David Worhatch serve residents throughout Summit County, including Akron and Cuyahoga Falls. With their help, you will get effective representation and individualized attention for your legal transactions. Call this dedicated attorney’s office today at (330) 656-2300, or visit his website for more information on his practice areas.