A succession does not need to be a complicated or expensive legal process. Some are obviously more complicated than others but Mr. Zito will work with each estate to provide the most efficient legal expertise to reach the desired results keeping in mind that costs are a significant concern for everyone. Mr. Zito has an extensive background in successions and wills.
Wills and Living Trusts
Preserving your wealth for future generations takes more than a simple will. Mr. Zito reviews your financial status, including where you might go in life, and drafts a set of documents, including living trusts, powers of attorney and other documents to protect your assets during and after your lifetime. With the proper documents in your estate plan, you may be able to avoid probate and reduce your estate’s tax liability.
Health Care Directives
Part of drafting your estate plan includes health care directives. These are documents that come into play should you become incapacitated from an accident or illness. Instead of allowing family members to fight over what the best course of care is for you, you can dictate it yourself via a living will, trusts, powers of attorney and other documents.
Post Mortem Planning
Post mortem planning includes planning for probate and trust administration. If at all possible, you want your estate to avoid the probate process to avoid court fees and other costs as well as draw out the length of time before heirs’ can receive their inheritance. Certain trusts and other documents help keep your estate out of probate.
The probate process becomes expensive; and when you add estate taxes onto the cost, a large chunk of your estate disappears. If you do have to go through probate, our office will file the appropriate documents with the probate court and take some of the stress off the executor/executrix of the will.
Trust administration could be stressful to the administrator. Our office helps your appointed trustee to administer the trust and removes some of the stress from dealing with the trust, leaving your trust administrator to handle other aspects of your death.
If you have a family-owned business or a farm, a properly executed and maintained estate plan may protect the assets from creditors and ex-spouses, reduce estate taxes on the transfer of the business.
Legacy Planning
If you need to preserve heirlooms and life stories in addition to preserving your financial wealth, ask us about legacy planning. Mr. Zito will add language to wills, trusts, powers of attorney, family limited partnerships and other documents to help preserve your heirlooms and your life story while minimizing estate taxes.
Elder Law and Medicaid Services
Medicaid and other government programs that could help with long-term care usually require that your net worth is pretty low. We help you legally qualify for these programs while preserving your estate for your families. You can save your assets for your heirs instead of spending it on high nursing home expenses.
Asset Protection and Business Planning
Many people do not think of asset protection and business planning as part of creating an estate plan, but many of the documents are the same type. Certain types of trusts and other estate plan documents keep people who want to sue you out of your pocket. These trusts also keep creditors away from your estate. During your lifetime, these trusts and estate plan documents, properly drafted, protect your investments. After your death, the trusts continue protecting your investments for your heirs.
Contact Baton Rouge attorney James Zito today at (225) 201-0520 to schedule a consultation and to learn more about setting up an estate plan to protect your assets and your heirs should you find yourself the subject of a legal action, become incapacitated and require long-term nursing care, or pass away.