Woburn Estate Planning Attorney

Protecting Your Assets and Your Property

The Woburn estate planning lawyer at the Heritage Law Center provides a personalized approach to estate planning to residents of eastern Massachusetts. As you seek to protect your assets and secure the future for yourself and your family, our experienced estate planning attorney, Matthew Karr, Esq., and his qualified staff will make themselves available to you in ways most estate planning attorneys don’t. He believes in getting to know each client’s situation and goals during an initial consultation and using open communication between client and lawyer to create the best estate plan for every person.

Many people put off estate planning because they feel that they have plenty of time to get to the task or because they are uncomfortable discussing some of the issues the process raises. In fact, the process is a reassuring one. Our clients often express gratitude for the peace of mind they experience once we’ve helped them take control of the future by providing for unexpected, as well as anticipated, events. To learn more, contact the Heritage Law Center at (617) 765-9307 today.

Why Do Your Estate Planning Now?

Estate planning is the best way to protect yourself, your family, and your assets. But estate planning law only works if you put it in place before something happens. Whether you have a large or modest estate, you want to:

• Preserve the value of your estate, including minimizing estate taxes and avoiding the costs of probate.
• Control how things are given to your loved ones.
• Ensure your children will always be taken care of by the people you want, in the way you want.
• Minimize wait times for your assets to be distributed to your beneficiaries.
• Make sure your finances are managed well if you ever become incapacitated.
• Document your choices for medical care and end-of-life services.
• Help your loved ones avoid having to navigate through a legal mess during an emotional time.
• Avoid future family disputes and family law matters over your estate or medical care by documenting your wishes.

The Advantages of Estate Planning with the Heritage Law Center

At the Heritage Law Center, our law office does everything we can to create an atmosphere of trust. From your initial consultation, you’ll find us not only knowledgeable about current state and federal law but eager to share our knowledge with you in an easy-to-understand way. Furthermore, we’re:

• Extremely well-credentialed in elder and estate planning law
• Always available for questions and concerns
• Backed by a history of successful evaluations by clients and peers
• Compassionate as well as efficient
• Attentive to detail
• Dedicated to drafting documents that will best serve your personal needs and goals

Because we charge flat fees for our estate planning services, you won’t ever have to worry about how much each conversation costs. In addition to creating new estate plans, we perform reviews of existing plans that may be out of date. And we offer a no-charge, three-year review of the estate planning documents we draft. No matter what your age or specific circumstances, we’re here to give you the outstanding and affordable estate planning service you deserve.

What Does an Estate Plan Include?

There are many different legal documents you can choose to include in your estate plan. Our team will examine your unique situation and your goals for the future before making recommendations for your estate planning documents.

An estate plan can include:

• Last will and testament: Controls the distribution of your assets once you are deceased. It will name an executor (personal representative), grant guardians for minor children, and include instructions for the distribution of your assets.
• Power of attorney: Allows you to name an individual to make financial decisions on your behalf if you ever become incapacitated.
• Trust: A legal document that can hold legal title to your assets. It outlines the rules you want followed for the assets in the trust and how you’d like the assets distributed upon your death.
• Health care proxy: Assigns another individual as an agent to make health care decisions if you’re no longer able to.
• Declaration of Homestead: Helps homeowners protect the equity value in their primary home from some creditors’ claims.

Wills vs. Trusts in Estate Planning

Our law office offers you the best in legal counsel by helping you choose the right documents for your unique circumstances:

• A last will and testament designates an executor, the individual who will settle the estate and make sure your assets will be distributed according to your wishes. It also lets you select a guardian for any underage children.
• A trust holds legal title to property for the benefit of another person (“beneficiary”). A trust can be used to distribute property before death, at death, or afterward.

Although it is not required to have both a will and a trust, many individuals choose to have both. It is possible to use a will and a trust to protect your assets and manage them now and in the future. Our attorneys will recommend the right estate planning strategies for you based on your financial situation.

The Benefits of Trusts in Estate Plans

There are many types of trusts, each designed to serve a particular estate planning purpose. This is one of the primary reasons why having a skilled estate planning lawyer is so crucial. We’ll guide you to the trusts that will work best for you, for example:

• Protecting your assets from taxes, creditors, and possible lawsuits
• Protecting a special needs loved one from losing government benefits
• Keeping an irresponsible relative from blowing through their inheritance too quickly
• Providing for a beloved pet if you predecease it

The two basic categories of trusts are revocable and irrevocable. Revocable trusts help you avoid costly and time-consuming probate while preserving your privacy because, unlike wills, they aren’t public documents. Revocable trusts are flexible since you can change what’s in the trust or end the trust at any time. Irrevocable trusts take your assets out of your own name. This provides the advantage of keeping these assets from being vulnerable to taxes, unfavorable lawsuit verdicts, and predatory lenders. Irrevocable trusts can’t be changed or undone.

We’ll help you determine which trusts will be most helpful for you and your family. In addition, you can count on us to make sure every “t” is crossed and every “i” is dotted so that your trust documents, like all documents we draft and review for you, are clearly stated and legally binding.

Probate and Estate Administration

Probate is a court-managed process in which a deceased’s assets are managed and distributed. With our experienced probate lawyer beside you, you’ll be able to relax knowing that your assets are protected and your family’s future is secure. You can rely on us to streamline the process as much as possible, navigating around any obstacles that might interfere with smooth sailing.

Difficulties during the probate process can include:

• Real estate in probate administration: Transferring or partitioning real estate to resolve issues within an estate is a complex matter. Our attorneys will handle this complicated legal issue for you.
• Guardianship and conservatorship: There may come a time when your loved one is unable to care for themselves. Our team can help you pursue guardianship or conservatorship to ensure they are taken care of.
• Estate litigation: If an estate or will is challenged, it may enter the litigation process. Our attorneys will represent you in court to get your legal matter resolved effectively.
• Dying without a will: If your loved one died without leaving a will behind, we can help you file for estate administration under intestacy laws.

Trust Administration

We routinely advise trustees and work with them to ensure that trusts are being administered properly since they have a legal responsibility to act in the best interest of the beneficiaries.

If you’re the trustee of someone else’s trust, you’ll manage the trust during the grantor’s (person who created the trust) lifetime, and then you’ll take over trust administration after their death. After the grantor passes away, here are some of the tasks you’ll be responsible for:

• Notify the beneficiaries, legal heirs, and banks and other financial institutions
• File an affidavit regarding the grantor’s death
• Open a trust bank account
• Appraise all trust assets at their market values
• Determine the beneficiary status of the decedent’s retirement accounts
• Transfer or sell trust assets to pay debts and tax liability
• Pay death tax and final income taxes
• Distribute assets to beneficiaries according to the terms of the trust

Why Hire a Trust Administration Attorney?

Planning for Possible Incapacity

Most people who have recently decided to go into estate planning are very uncomfortable with this aspect of the process. Nonetheless, this is a significant part of planning for your future. No one wants to think about mortality or incapacity, but one is inevitable, and the other is possible (even if it’s only temporary).

If a crisis—such as a personal injury or serious accident, a sudden medical event, or a debilitating illness—occurs in your family, being prepared for incapacity with proper documents will make it much easier to cope. Knowing the victim’s medical, financial, and familial wishes ahead of time will mean much less turmoil and distress for your loved ones. At The Heritage Law Center, we’ll help ensure that the documents, including those below, are available at the moment they’re critically needed:

• Health care proxy
• Living will (including possible organ donation)
• Durable power of attorney
• HIPAA authorization

With our help, you can rest assured that, in case of a personal injury, serious illness, or other catastrophe, your minor children will be well cared for, your financial and medical decisions will be made by those you trust most, and you’ll receive precisely the medical interventions you have directed. In other words, we’ll have to make certain that your voice will be “heard” when you can no longer speak for yourself.

Free Estate Planning Reports

You can find more information about estate planning in our free reports: Estate Planning Essentials Report, Massachusetts Estate Planning: Saving on Taxes Report, and 7 Common Mistakes Parents Make When Selecting Guardians Report.

Contact Our Estate Planning Lawyer

When you work with our extremely knowledgeable law firm, estate planning is an ongoing process. We’re dedicated to keeping your plan updated by reviewing your estate plan with you as significant changes in your life occur. No matter what happens—marriage, birth, a death in the family, impending college costs, divorce, or remarriage—our law office will see to it that you’re well-prepared for the future. Contact the Heritage Law Center now for a consultation by calling (617) 765-9307.