Articles Tagged with Estate Planning; Married Couples

Estate planning isn't exactly my idea of fun, but it's absolutely necessary. Just like you're planning for retirement, you need to plan for the inevitable.

If you have taken the vow of “until death do us part,” have you considered what will happen if you are no longer here? Does your spouse know and understand your estate plan? Will your spouse be able to manage what you leave behind?

Estate planning for married persons begins with thinking about the future security of your spouse in a world without you. In many ways, you likely assume that your spouse is prepared to take over. However, this is a potentially dangerous assumption and one that should not be taken for granted. In fact, many things can go awry, both practically and legally, unless you and your spouse have specifically talked them over.

Knowing these objectives help both the couple and their estate planner determine what might be the best way to structure their estate plan. Below are eight of the most common estate planning objectives that influence a couple’s estate plan.

Planning for just you and your hopes takes a lot of work. While you may be of one mind (literally), there is much to think about, values to weigh, and options to select. But what about married couples? However close, married couples are not just of “one” mind and, accordingly, as a couple will have that much more to think through and plan. As a married couple planning for your estates, what should your objectives be?

How, where and why do married couples come together in their planning and what values or strategies should they work to support? There is no one answer because this has everything to do with the couple, their assets, their loves ones, and their many hopes besides. Nevertheless, even unique couples can find themselves pursuing common objectives by one tool or another. Forbes offered a helpful little list of eight common objectives for married couples planning their estates in a recent article titled “Eight Common Estate Planning Objectives Of Married Couples.”