A plan can help the people you trust understand what you want and who may act for you. Why wills, trusts and incapacity planning are really about having a say.
Estate planning is easy to postpone. When people hear “estate planning,” they often think first about money — or assume a will or trust is something they can put off until they are older. Many people picture a complicated file of documents and assume it is only for someone with substantial wealth.
I look at estate planning a little differently. Yes, property matters. But at its heart, estate planning is about your voice. Who do you trust? Who should be able to step in if you cannot handle something yourself? Who would you want to speak for you, and what would you want them to know? Who should receive the things you worked for? And what do you want the people you love to know about your choices?
A good plan reflects your family, your property, and your wishes. It can address decisions during your lifetime as well as what happens after death.
California Courts makes the point plainly: estate planning is not only for wealthy people, and planning documents can help manage important decisions while you are alive as well as after death.
Different documents do different jobs
A will is one part of that planning. In California, a will can state how you want property distributed at death and can name an executor to carry out the administration of the estate. But a will does not do every job.
A living trust can serve a different purpose. When properly created and funded, trust assets can generally pass to the beneficiaries under the trust without the ordinary probate administration that would otherwise be required for those assets. Whether a trust makes sense depends on the person, the property involved, family circumstances, and the goals of the plan.
Planning also matters while we are alive. A California power of attorney can authorize someone you choose to handle specified financial or property matters. An Advance Health Care Directive can allow you to name an agent for health-care decisions and express your own health-care instructions if you later cannot communicate or make those decisions yourself.
Those documents are why I like the phrase: “Your Voice. Your Choice.”
Let your choices be heard
Estate planning is not about trying to control every possible thing that may happen. None of us can do that. It is about taking the decisions that we can make today and putting them into legally appropriate documents so the people around us have guidance tomorrow.
And plans should not simply be signed and forgotten. Life changes. Families change. People marry and divorce. Children grow up. We buy or sell property. The person we trusted ten years ago may no longer be the person we would choose today. An old plan may still be legally significant, but it may no longer reflect the choices we would make now.
For me, the starting point for estate planning is not, “How much are you worth?” It is, “What matters to you, who matters to you, and what would you want to happen if you could not be there to explain it yourself?”
That is a very different conversation — and usually a much more meaningful one.
Your estate plan should be your voice, your choices and your plan for the people and things that matter to you.
You do not need to know which form to ask for before we speak. Tell me who and what matters to you. We can discuss the decisions you want to make and what California planning tools may fit.