Northwest Arkansas Estate Planning Attorney & Law Firm

Estate planning is about stopping the Government from interfering in your and your family’s private affairs!

Estate planning is arranging for the control of your decisions and distribution of your property when you are unable to be in control for any reason during your lifetime and beyond. That is, if you can’t make the decisions, who will? Will they have the legal authority? What power will they have? Did you pick them, or a Judge? Do you want a Judge to oversee the management of you and your money?

Estate planning is more than just a Will. A Will alone requires probate. An effective estate plan prevents probate and prevents many more legal problems. Problems that can cost you and your family a lot of money. Problems that can cause you to lose what you have…even if it’s not your fault!

If I had to summarize all of estate planning in one word, that word would be “control.” With a plan, you control who’s in charge. You control your privacy. And you control who gets what, when, how, and how much.

Estate Planning = Peace of Mind and Certainty.

Estate Planning reduces the uncertainty and costs of dealing with lifetime incidents and accidents.

Estate Planning reduces the uncertainty and high cost of dealing with your final estate.

Estate Planning is arranging for the care and management of your personal property and real estate during and and after your lifetime.  An estate plan should be tailored to each family’s unique needs, goals, and desires.

If you should be unable to make decisions during your lifetime, an Estate Plan tells the world who can make decisions for you, manage your money, and more instead of a Judge.

Your own estate is everything you own. It includes life insurance policies, retirement accounts, annuities, retirement plans, IRAs, checking accounts, savings accounts, furniture, clothing, and more.

Probate is a legal process that takes place after someone passes away. It involves verifying the deceased person’s will, if there is one, and settling their estate. The court appoints an executor, often named in the will, to manage this process. The executor’s duties include gathering the deceased’s assets, paying off debts and taxes, and distributing the remaining assets to the beneficiaries as specified in the will. If there is no will, the court will appoint an administrator to perform these tasks, and the assets will be distributed according to state law.

The probate process starts with filing a petition at the probate court in the county where the deceased person lived. The court then formally appoints the executor or administrator. Once appointed, the executor must notify all creditors, beneficiaries, and heirs about the probate. Creditors usually have a set period to file claims for any money owed to them. The executor reviews these claims and pays them off from the estate’s assets. Any disputes that arise during this time, such as challenges to the will, are settled by the court.

After all debts and taxes are paid, the remaining assets are distributed to the beneficiaries. The executor must provide the court with a detailed account of how the assets were managed and distributed. Once the court approves this final account, the executor’s role is completed, and the probate process is closed. It’s essential to understand that probate can be a lengthy and costly process, but it ensures that the deceased’s assets are distributed fairly and according to the law.

A trust is a contract (legal document) between the Grantor (the person who creates the trust), the Trustee (the person who controls and manages the trust) and the beneficiaries (those entitled to benefit from the trust). You, as Grantor, determine how the trust will be operated by the Trustee and who benefits, how and when.

During your lifetime, you are the Grantor, Trustee, and Beneficiary! That means you maintain full control of the Trust unless you are incapacitated. In that case, you’ve already named the next Trustee (manager)!

We have several trusts available and one of them will meet your needs.

If you have minor children, the best way to protect them and their assets is with a trust.

With trusts, you’re in greater control of who gets your assets and when. Typically, heirs receive assets through a trust much more quickly than they would via probate court. Our estate planning services include setting up trusts to distribute your assets just days or weeks following your death.

Often a trust is needed when you have family with special needs, addiction issues, or underage children. You also want to use a trust when you think family will fight or you have complex rules.

When it comes to setting up a trust, you have two main options. One is a revocable trust, which you can change as long as you’re still living and able to make sound financial decisions. An irrevocable trust, on the other hand, is much stricter. You can’t change this type of trust without a court order or the approval of all beneficiaries. An estate planning attorney will help you choose a trust if you’re unsure which is best for you.

People with large estates can also use trusts as a estate tax-efficient method of wealth transfer. In some cases, your heirs won’t have to pay taxes on assets you’ve left them in a trust. That’s especially appealing in a rough economy when every penny counts. Calculating trust taxes is a complicated topic, though, which is why you need a knowledgeable estate planning attorney to help you out.

A trust keeps your estate out of probate and may also mean your beneficiaries get a larger inheritance. In Arkansas, a trust does not have to pay your creditors.

In a trust, you put property into it as the “grantor.” Then the “trustee,” who is you during your lifetime, or you and your spouse if your are a married couple, manages the property for the benefit of the beneficiaries. When you pass, then the trust becomes irrevocable and your successor trustee follows the rules you left.

With a Will, you decide who gets your assets and on what terms. Pick who gets what, when, how, and how much.

A Will is a legal document that lists who you want to get what, when, how, and how much.

If you don’t have a Will (or Trust), then the State decides who gets what, when, how, and how much.

Determine who will take care of underage children and who will administer your estate – known as the executor or personal representative.

You may think that if you don’t have a lot of money in bank accounts, real estate, or other assets, you don’t need a will. Or maybe you’re still young and assume you’ve got plenty of time to write a will. Unfortunately, these are common misconceptions that could come back to hurt your loved ones after you’ve passed away.

If you die without making beneficiary designations through a will, your estate could get tied up in lengthy and complicated probate proceedings – and that’s something you want to avoid at all costs.

A “Beneficiary Plan” uses a combination of methods and tools available to keep the majority, if not all, of your estate out of Probate without the expense and complexity of a Trust.

Many people often write just a Will and forget there are other better ways to handle their bank accounts. With a plan your bank accounts, investments, savings accounts, financial accounts, retirement plans, life insurance policy, and retirement accounts will be shielded from the rigors of probate.

What happens if you become ill or incapacitated and can no longer make decisions for yourself?

A Power of Attorney, perhaps the most important legal document, lets you appoint someone (your Agent) you know and trust to manage your affairs if you can’t.

Powers of attorney give your agent authorization to manage your money and property when you’re sick, disabled, or otherwise unable to do so.

If you can’t pay bills, get records or make other decisions, your family will be prevented from helping you get treatment, pay doctors, pay bills, sell assets, or work with Medicare.

If your loved one becomes incapacitated and does not have a Power of Attorney, your family may have to file what is known as a Guardianship Proceeding to obtain guardianship of the incapacitated person. This process involves the Court, several lawyers, doctors and usually costs three thousand dollars or more. A Power of Attorney costs a fraction of that.

Advance care planning ensures that your family knows exactly what to do, making things a little easier for them during what is likely a very difficult time.

A properly drafted, comprehensive Power of Attorney lets your Agent to preserve your assets in the event that you need nursing home care for your loved ones.

It is important that you give your family the tools to help you if you cannot help yourself.

They are similar, but you can think of guardianship as stricter and more restrictive overall. The Probate judge will pick your guardian. A guardian does not have as much authority to act independently. With power of attorney, you’re still allowed to make certain choices for yourself. If you’re under someone’s guardianship, however, that person makes all decisions on your behalf.

Make your wishes clear and binding for life support, organ donation, and who has access to your medial records.

Control Where Your Assets Go – and who is responsible for making sure that they go where you want and how you want.

Control Important Healthcare Decisions – your plan includes your wishes should you be incapacitated for any reason

Control Personal, Legal, and Financial Decisions – and who you want to handle your finances and legal matters if you should be incapacitated for any reason

For most people, estate tax is not a concern. Arkansas has none. 

The federal estate and inheritance taxes start, in 2023, at $12.92 million of assets. A couple, because of the rules, can have double that. Your total taxable estate includes everything you own, including proceeds form life insurance unless other planning has been done.

That means that the majority of estates will not owe estate tax unless it is in a state with the tax. Most estates don’t even need to fill out a return for inheritance taxes and send it to the internal revenue service.

You really want to avoid estate taxes because the estate tax rate is 40%.

You need to be careful, because this is tied very closely to the gift tax. For every $1.00 of gift you give during your lifetime, you lose $1.00 of estate tax exemption. Another reason to watch making gifts is because of Medicaid.

What Happens Without a Plan?

• Probate is the default. Without your plan, your estate will have to go through Probate and all the hassles that brings.
• Decisions made without your input! If you can’t make your own decisions, a Judge gets the final say.
• You don’t decide who gets what, when, how, and how much…the State does.
• You don’t decide who manages your personal, legal, financial and healthcare choices…the State does.
• You lose control

With a Plan

• Save Your Family From the Aggravations of Probate. Take control so the law doesn’t take control from you. Know who will get what, when, how, and how much
• Take care of yourself – Know who will make decisions for you in a health or personal crisis
• Care for your family – Pick the people you trust the most to take care of your loved ones
• Experience peace of mind and relief you deserve
• Feel good knowing you’ve just finished a major step in protecting you, your family, and your money

We all have a window of opportunity to plan our affairs. Don’t wait too long and let your window close.

The estate planning deadline is now. Why? Because tomorrow’s not promised. The next minute isn’t promised.

Once you need a plan it’s too late to create a plan. 

Estate planning is about more than who gets your stuff. It’s about preventing lifetime problems too. If you are in an accident or have a medical incident, then you and your family will be glad you have a plan. Because if you don’t have a plan, then your family most likely will have to get a Judge’s permission to help you and manage your affairs while you can’t.

We can’t predict the moment we will need a plan, so it’s best to create an effective estate plan before you need one.

1. A Will. Everybody should have a Last Will and Testament. If you don’t have a trust, this document is used to distribute your estate as you want. If you have a trust, the will is there as a safety net to catch anything that might not have made it into the trust. But, your Will doesn’t give you any lifetime protection. However, a Will requires probate. However with proper planning, this is minimized if not eliminated.

Other than a Will, what should you have? What would happen to you and your family if your were suddenly unable to make your own decisions? Here are what you should have in place to protect everybody and make decisions easy and clear.

2. A Durable Power of Attorney. This names the people you want to manage your affairs when you aren’t able to (or don’t want to). You get to make the choice of who manages your affairs instead of a Judge. You get to limit their power to what you want.

3. A Healthcare Power of Attorney. A healthcare power of attorney names the people you want to make your healthcare decisions when you can’t. If you don’t, then family will need to go to court to let a Judge name the person who will be in charge.

4. A Protected Healthcare Information release or HIPAA waiver. Without this, even your family doesn’t have the legal authority to get information about your health information or records. Without it, they may have difficulty making healthcare decisions for you when you can’t. It would take a court order instead and that means a trip or trips to court.

5. An advance directive or “Living Will.” Don’t confuse this with your last will and testament. This is a healthcare document. In it you make the decision now if you want to be kept alive artificially if nothing else can be done.

The Government has an estate plan for you, your family, and your stuff already written!

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It is all written down in the Arkansas statutes in Title 28. You can read it if you want.

You probably won’t like the “Default Plan” The Government Already Has for You and Your Family.

The government’s plan includes Probate and other court proceedings. These are time consuming and expensive as well as hard on you and your family.

Let me ask you some questions:

Do you think the government’s plan is always in your best interest?

Do you think the government’s plan is going to be the least expensive option for your family?

Is their plan the one that saves the most in taxes, takes the least amount of time, keeps your family out of the courts, keeps everything private, and is the least likely to cause family disputes?

I think you know the answer to those questions.

If you don’t want the Government in complete control of you and your stuff, you need to write your own plan to override theirs. If you want to decide who gets what, when, how and how much, you plan. If you want to decide who’s in charge when you can’t be, you plan.

The only way to override the state’s plan is to legally create an effective estate plan of your own. Your plan that protects you, your family, and your money the best way possible.

Far too many people think that a Will alone eliminates probate.

I want you to understand that a Will DOES NOT eliminate probate or provide any lifetime protections. A Will requires probate and does nothing during your lifetime! And probate is a waste of time and money your family doesn’t need.

To eliminate probate and other legal nightmares, you need more than a Will alone.

You need to make sure everything you own passes outside of probate. You do this with a combination of deeds, beneficiary designations, and maybe even a trust depending on the complexity of your situation.

To eliminate lifetime problems you want to

1. Keep you children off the accounts and deed to your house. If you put them on the accounts or deed, then their financial troubles become your financial problems. It can lead to you losing a lot of money or even your house. If they get sued, have IRS issues, run into credit problems, run up high healthcare costs, and more then your accounts with their name on them could be used to pay their bills.

2. Create powers of attorney for finances, legal decisions, personal decisions, and healthcare. Without these powers of attorney your family ends up in court to get permission to make decisions for you if you are unable to.

You can look on the internet and in the yellow pages. The best thing is to ask for referrals from friends, family, and allied professionals such as CPAs and attorneys that practice in other areas of the law. These are the best ways to find your Trust attorney. Don’t forget that you should take the time to “interview” your attorney before signing with them.

During your lifetime you control your stuff such as money, real estate, and personal belongings. You can give to anybody you want. You can give it to them physically or sign it over to them.

When you aren’t there to give your property away, somebody else, a Judge, has sign over the property to those you want it to go to. Or, if you didn’t leave a Will, then State law, the Government and a Judge, decides who gets what, when, how, and how much. The Judge may even order it all sold!

In the digital age, it has become more common for people to try to do their own planning – writing wills, powers of attorney, and even trusts online. The do it yourself model may work for very simple estates. All too often, these online methods result in more headaches for you and your family than they were worth.

Only an experienced, professionally trained attorney really knows what is needed in an estate plan.