A challenge in planning for retirement is not knowing how long life will last. This makes it difficult to do budgeting for the remaining years of life, but it also makes it harder to ensure that an estate ends up in the proper hands down the road. A few tips may help to make estate planning easier in the state of Texas.
First, it is critical to review an individual retirement account and to ensure that the proper parties are listed as beneficiaries. In this way, bequests can go right into these parties’ inherited or own IRAs. This is subject, however, to the mandatory requirements for distribution that are in place for those who are not surviving spouses.
In many cases today, retirement funds such as holdings that are not in IRAs, or cash, are kept in living trusts. Trusts help to shelter estates from the public and costly process of probate. For those serving as their trusts’ primary trustees, it is important to designate secondary and/or co-trustees or executors. They will carry out the trusts’ provisions when the primary trustees pass away, which includes distributing assets as instructed.
Careful estate planning is necessary to protect the wishes of the owners of assets ranging from real estate to cash. The best interests of their intended beneficiaries can also be protected through detailed estate planning. An attorney in the state of Texas can help to ensure that the greatest amount of property possible goes to heirs rather than taxes and court costs.
Source: yourwestvalley.com, “Estate planning helps wishes come true“, Adam Carlat, March 8, 2017