Estate Planning in Denver

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Denver Estate Planning Attorney

NAVIGATING THE Colorado ESTATE PLANNING PROCESS? 

We spend our lives building up our collection of treasures. As children, we dream of the car or house we might one day own. When we finally reach those goals, it makes sense to protect our assets and valuables. To properly protect your assets, consider hiring an experienced attorney. The established Denver estate planning lawyers from Wiegand Attorneys & Counselors LLC may be able to help you. 

A lawyer for estate planning can ensure that your valuables are protected, handled and assigned properly to beneficiaries during the estate planning process.

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What Is the Purpose of Making an Estate Plan?

The purpose of an estate plan is to ensure that your assets and property are protected and properly distributed upon death. When it comes to estate planning, the client’s personal wishes should take priority. Our Denver firm guides clients in addressing the following during the estate planning process in Colorado.

Questions to Consider When Creating an Estate Plan:


  • Who do you want to receive the assets that will be listed as part of your estate?
  • Is there a spouse who, due to differing levels of wealth, you wish to treat differently than he/she would be treated under the prevailing statutes?
  • Do you have a “partner” that you treat as your spouse but who is not, legally, a spouse?
  • Is this a second marriage with assets and children that fall under the different categories of “yours”, “mine” and “ours”?
  • Are there persons that you wish to treat as children, but are not legally your children?
  • When, if ever, do you want to turn assets over to the beneficiary?
  • Are there beneficiaries whom, for whatever reason, you do not want to ever have control of the assets (e.g., the beneficiary is a spendthrift, is suffering from drug or emotional dependency or from some other incapacity)?
  • Are there any beneficiaries who can better utilize Medicaid or other social security benefits if the assets can be kept out of their control?
  • Who do you want to manage assets until they are turned over to the ultimate beneficiary?

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What Is a Fiduciary?

Whether you are naming a personal representative/executor of your estate, the trustee of a trust or an agent under a power of attorney, you need to consider who you want to name as the “fiduciary”.

What Are Fiduciary Duties:


  • Making investment decisions.
  • Keeping accurate financial records.
  • Understanding and applying fiduciary accounting rules and using discretion in applying these rules.
  • Preparing and filing appropriate tax returns and making the appropriate tax elections.
  • Allocating discretionary distribution between or among multiple beneficiaries and dealing with disputes with beneficiaries who question the use of discretion.

How to Choose a Fiduciary Investment Advisor 

It is true that a trusted friend or relative may qualify to act as an investment advisor. However, that person may not be the best choice to make the multitude of discretionary decisions encountered. Conversely, the person chosen to be the Guardian of a minor, or incapacitated person, may not be the best person to handle the finances. 

In short, it may be appropriate to divide duties among an investment advisor, a financial decision-maker, and — where appropriate — a guardian of an incapacitated person. It may also be appropriate to simply name someone to be a person whom the fiduciary can rely on for advice. The alternative choices are numerous. A qualified Denver estate law attorney can answer any questions you have about naming a fiduciary and can help you make the best decision.

Contact our office today via our online form or by calling our Colorado offices at 303-747-6791 to schedule an appointment with a highly qualified estate planning lawyer near you.

 

What Is a Holistic Approach to Estate Planning in Denver?

Estate planning is more than determining who will get what and when. There are other important issues to address.

What to Include in an Estate Plan:


  • Burial and memorial service instructions
  • Identification of all internet (digital) assets, including usernames and passwords
  • Instructions regarding the continuation or termination of social media accounts
  • Identification of all internet access usernames and passwords, including bank accounts, automatic payments by bank account or credit or debit cards, and other matters that no longer communicate by the hard copy “snail mail”
  • Life insurance policies and retirement plans and annuities
  • Real estate owned in other states

How Often Should You Review Your Estate Plan?

You should review your estate plan annually. While some recommend doing it every few years, it’s best to check it once a year in the event that circumstances have changed or a major life event has occurred. This will ensure that the terms of your estate plan are up-to-date and aligned with your priorities. 

You Should Update Your Estate Plan If:


  • There are familial changes. This can include the birth of a child or grandchild, as well as the death of a family member, or changes in relationships with relatives included as beneficiaries 
  • There are marital changes. This could occur if there was a recent marriage or divorce in the family. 
  • There are major financial changes. This could include a change of assets, including real estate worth, as well as retirement.
  • There are legal changes. This could occur if there are changes in tax laws or if you relocated to another state.

What Is Estate Tax Planning?

Most estates fall well below the need to consider estate taxes in the state of Colorado. However, the same is not true if the client owns real estate in other states. Are you also a resident of another state? If so, then estate tax planning may apply to you. 

For Large Estates, or Cases Where We Must Consider the Laws of Other States, We Offer:


  • Personal Transfer Tax Planning (Gift, Estate, and Generation-Skipping). This will affect the transfer of one’s estate during life and after death to minimize federal and Colorado estate tax losses.
  • Specific planning around the generation-skipping tax liabilities.
  • Planning to preserve the family wealth by establishing long-term trusts, “dynasty trusts” and planned giving trusts (such as split-interest charitable trusts).

What Is Charitable Giving? 

You must share the gift of giving. It is not inherent in our being. Rather, you learn it over time. You can share your wealth by determining a certain amount to be set aside each month, quarter, year and so on. We call this “Charitable giving planning.”

Consider the Following if You Are Thinking About Setting Money Aside for Charitable Purposes:


  • Is it appropriate you to make a lifetime gift to a split-interest charitable trust, reserving the income for life, with the remainder to charity? Note that in so doing, you may benefit from a current income-tax charitable deduction, even though your estate is less than would be expected to benefit from an estate tax charitable deduction.
  • After deducting the lifetime income, you can select a charity for the remainder. Or, you can set it up so that your children could choose the charity.
  • The lifetime income tax deduction could produce sufficient income tax savings, allowing a lifetime gift to those who would have inherited if the gift had not been made.
  • Setting up a charitable “donor-advised fund”. By doing this, the donor receives the immediate tax deduction from a large charitable gift to a public charity. The donor also has the choice to periodically select different charities. After the donor’s death, the donor’s children can continue as the donor-advisors.

We Can Assist With Planning Your Charitable Giving

Our estate lawyers discuss not only the client’s assets, but also their principles. For example, many of our Colorado clients have a long-standing tradition in place of giving to their religious institutions, communities, charitable organizations and other entities; however, planning may not be in place to continue that tradition after death – not because those administering the estate do not think it is important, but merely because the client has not thought through this issue and left sufficient instructions. Our experienced Denver estate planning lawyers can help you every step of the way during the estate planning process.

Take Our Estate Planning Questionnaire 

We designed our Estate Planning Questionnaire to raise issues that explore more than the (relatively simple) question of who gets what and when. Further,  our estate law attorney in Denver designed questions to provoke thoughtful consideration of many other issues. We hope that you find it a helpful resource as you begin estate planning.

DOWNLOAD OUR ESTATE PLANNING QUESTIONNAIRE:


Estate Planning Questions? Call Us Today

You have spent your whole life accumulating assets and property that you hold dear. Therefore, you will want to protect those assets and property for current and future use. As a result, you may find yourself asking questions about estate planning law. Please feel free to review our Estate Planning Frequently Asked Questions page for basic information about estate planning law in Colorado.

After reviewing this page, the best thing you can do to ensure that you protect your prized possessions is to hire one of the experienced Denver estate planning attorneys from Wiegand Attorneys & Counselors, LLC. We have been representing clients for over 40 years — we know how to build a strong estate plan that leaves little room for differing interpretations.

Visit our lawyer reviews to see why clients choose our Colorado law firm when they are looking for good lawyers near them.


Contact our office today via our online form or by calling our Colorado offices to schedule an appointment with one of our highly qualified estate planning lawyer in Denver.


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