National Estate Planning Awareness Week is Approaching

Even though October is probably most well known for Halloween, or perhaps postseason baseball, it’s also the host to National Estate Planning Awareness Week. During National Estate Planning Awareness Week, which falls between October 20 and 26, individuals and families in the Colorado Springs and Centennial, Colorado area can take the time to educate themselves about the important issues and topics that estate planning addresses.

Overall, estate planning is one of the most misunderstood, and most often ignored, area of the law and financial planning in most people’s lives. To help better explain why estate planning is so important, here are several issues you might want to consider during National Estate Planning Awareness Week.

National Estate Planning Awareness Week

• Estate:. To put it simply, everyone has, or will have, an estate regardless of how much you own or how much money you make. An estate is the simply the collection of property and legal concerns you leave behind after death. Even if you don’t have that much you can still do a lot to protect yourself, your property, and the interests of your family, by creating an estate plan.
• Estate Plans: If you know what you have, you can fairly easily determine what might happen to your property should you die or become incapacitated. Creating tools that address what you want to happen to your estate is what the process of estate planning is all about. Through your estate plan you can make a wide range of specific choices, such as creating tools that will allow you to choose inheritances that you would like to leave behind. If you fail to create an estate plan, however, the laws of Colorado will effectively make your estate planning decisions for you.
• Incapacitation: Another essential part of estate planning is creating an incapacity plan that will take effect should you ever lose the ability to make decisions or communicate them. Incapacitation typically occurs to older people, though it can happen to anyone at any time. With an effective incapacity plan in place you can be sure that your property and interests will be looked after if you can no longer look after them yourself. You will also make it clear to your friends and family the kinds of decisions you want made on your behalf if you lose the ability to make choices.
• Pet Planning. If you have animals or pets, your estate plan will allow you to ensure that they will be protected if anything happens to you. By using a variety of tools you can set aside some money or property that will be specifically used to care for your animals when you can no longer look after them yourself.

Free Estate Planning Workshops

For more information on Estate Planning,be sure to attend one of our free estate planning workshops in October.  Register for one of these workshops here.  Seating is limited, so register today!