Estate Planning - Q and A

Estate Planning
Our trained, professional, business strategists at Sage International, Inc. are experts in helping you plan your estate. Since no two individuals share identical financial situations, family relationships, potential hazards or future goals, Sage develops a personalized action plan that responds to each of these considerations.

Please call us at 1-800-254-5779 for help in planning your estate today.

Question: What is estate planning? Is it a noun, an adjective, a branch of the law, a process or an act? And, never mind that … what does it refer to and what does it consist of? And, why am I supposed to get involved in estate planning?

Answer: Estate planning is a time-proven process that assures your goals will be attained and your dreams will come true.

Simply stated, if you are serious about attaining your goals and seeing your dreams come true, you should have an Estate Plan.

Here is our strong suggestion: Tell our friendly and knowledgeable staff here at Sage what your goals are and we will facilitate the development of an Estate Plan that will ensure you reach your goals and live your dreams. Of course, being an “Estate Plan,” it necessarily deals with your property, assets and material things.

So tell us what your goals are in terms of accumulating, protecting, spending, gifting, and ultimately disposing of your material assets. A good way to start is by completing the Workbook that accompanies this material. If you seriously want to achieve your goals and live your dreams, spend the time completing the Workbook. Once it is completed, copy it. Keep the original and send us the copy. Anything you write in the Workbook will be kept entirely confidential and not shared with anyone outside of Sage International, Inc. without your prior written consent.

Once your completed Workbook is received by Sage, a qualified professional on our staff will contact you and arrange a time for a focused confidential telephone conversation to go over your Workbook in detail.

More work will follow but you will at least have the beginnings of your Estate Plan, and quite possibly a complete and comprehensive Estate Plan that will change your life for the better.
Question: Does estate planning involve creating a living trust?

Answer: In most cases, yes.

Most of our clients own property that must pass through probate on their death before good title can pass to their surviving spouse, children and heirs. Most of these same clients want to avoid probate with all its well-known costs, delays, publicity and likelihood of litigation. The best way to accomplish this goal is to have a fully funded Revocable Living Trust.

You may well have to work with a lawyer and other professionals on this project, but we here at Sage can help you get that process started. And, again, the best way to initiate the process is to complete the accompanying Workbook.
Question: Is that it? Is that all there is to it? I get a Revocable Living Trust and I have an Estate Plan?

Answer: Not quite.

A fully-funded, comprehensive and well-written Revocable Living Trust will take care of things following your death, but what about taking care of things while you are alive?

Ask yourself:
1. Are you concerned about asset protection?
2. Are you concerned about tax avoidance?
3. Are you concerned about retirement planning?
4. Are you concerned about funding your children’s education?
5. Are you concerned about assuring the quality of your health care during your final illness?
6. Are you concerned about the management of your assets should you become incompetent or incapacitated?
7. Are you concerned about these same things for your spouse?
8. Are you concerned about leaving a lasting and a positive legacy for your children and those who will come after you?
Most of our clients are, if anything, just as concerned (some are more concerned!) about these items than they are about avoiding probate.

A good Estate Plan will address all these concerns and more.

For instance, a number of our clients have children with special needs, spouses who cannot cope on their own should their spouse predecease them, children born of a previous marriage who have been promised things they expect to receive whether or not their parent survives the current spouse, or a special family situation involving a sibling that must be addressed should the client predecease that sibling. A good Estate Plan will address these special concerns.

How do you get started on all these weighty items? Again, fill out the Workbook. That’s the first step.
Question: Is the sort of estate planning you are talking about something that is going to cost me an arm and a leg or, on the other hand, is it something that is going to come out of a can and be a “one size fits all” sort of document?

Answer: You can afford it and, at the same time, it will be custom tailored to meet your exact needs, wishes, goals and dreams.

Sage International works with some of the finest attorneys, CPAs, accountants, and financial planners in the country. These are professional men and women well versed, experienced and fully capable of providing you with the Estate Plan you need to ensure that you accomplish your goals and live your dreams.

And keep this in mind: the Estate Plan we have in mind for you will not be a single document. Most likely, it will consist of a specially drafted Revocable Living Trust, powers of attorney for you and your spouse, living wills, nominations of conservator/guardian and pour-over wills. In addition to these items, your Estate Plan may include one or more vital legal entities, together with one or more special purpose trusts designed to address a special need, concern or obligation.

The point is it will be a real Estate Plan; it will be affordable; and it will be custom tailored to you, your family, your goals and your dreams.

At this point, we know what you are likely thinking – “This is too much for me to even think about – I don’t even know where to begin.” Like any other project you have ever undertaken, we suggest that you back off and reduce this project to baby steps.

What is the first baby step? Complete the Workbook and get it back to us. Do that one thing and don’t worry or concern yourself with anything else.
Question: I am not a procrastinator, but just this once I am going to put this estate-planning thing off and think about it and maybe I’ll get back to it in a month or two. That won’t hurt anything, will it?

Answer: Attorneys we work with tell us the most interesting stories about their clients who claim they are not procrastinators. Here are a few:
1. "So both of them knew that their 15-year-old twins were prone to sneak the car out at night. When I learned of it, I talked to them about doing some serious asset protection planning but they kept putting me off. The next thing I knew they were waiting for me at my office when I came in one morning… One of their kids had wrecked the car and seriously hurt some people. I did all I could but trying to craft an asset protection plan after the damage has already been done is like trying to build a boat outdoors in a driving rainstorm in a swamp full of alligators when the flood waters are 30 feet above flood level. That one wreck wiped them out. Bummer."
2. “I probably met with that couple at least 10 times to talk about their Estate Plan. Then the husband had a stroke. The wife had to make all the decisions from that point on, and while she was grieving and most vulnerable she was hit on by some of the best con men in the country. When it was all over, the only thing they had to show for all their hard work was their home, a brand new Mercedes Benz and a pile of bills they could not afford to pay. It didn’t have to be that way.”
3. So I told my wife that I had been talking to this couple about a Revocable Living Trust for months and that’s all it was … talk. Then this afternoon around 3 p.m., they showed up in my office without an appointment and told me they were not leaving until they had signed and funded their Revocable Living Trust. And they weren’t kidding. On their way downtown to a doctor’s appointment this afternoon they witnessed and were nearly a part of a major accident involving a tanker truck loaded with gasoline and several automobiles. They watched the accident unfold. As soon as their car was able to move, they both had the same thought: ‘Forget the doctor – let’s get our Trust done NOW.’ They were not going to leave until it was signed, sealed and delivered. And that’s why I missed your mother’s birthday party. Honest.”
4. “Why is it that people only think about taxes in April or when they are about to die? With just a little bit of planning, I could have saved that couple millions that will now be paid to Uncle Sam. What a waste. And what a tragedy for the kids.”
5. “He was actually yellow when I walked into his hospital room. His skin was yellow. Even his eyes were yellow. His lips were yellow. His mouth was yellow. Complete liver failure was what it was. The doctors warned me before I walked in his room that he was yellow. I heard them, but I was still shocked. But, I had all the documents prepared and he and his wife signed them. He died shortly afterwards and, just as we expected, his ex-wife and his two worthless drug sniffing kids by his first marriage challenged everything saying my client was incompetent and out of his mind when he signed the documents because of the liver failure. The judge threw all that out because the doctors were adamant that although my client had complete liver failure, he was still competent when he signed the documents. Had my client died before I arrived, his estate would still be tied up in litigation today.”
6. “He died with no estate planning at all. There was more than a million dollars worth of assets in his estate. The family split into two different warring camps, hired their lawyers and went to court with a vengeance. When it was over the government got half, the lawyers got half and the kids got nothing. Nobody was happy…not even the lawyers.”
7. “She had been around the block a few times and thought she could do it herself; didn’t need a lawyer. She ended up with a Revocable Living Trust that did not work, and an annuity with a worthless company designed for someone 20 years old, not for someone like her in her late 70s. And then, to add insult to injury, there was a long drawn out probate that ripped 20% of the assets right off the top of her estate to pay the lawyers. Lawyers love people like her. She makes their day.”

This article was drafted by Charles Matthews, Corporate Legal Counsel for Sage International, Inc.