Wills & Trusts Lawyers in Strathmore, AB Protecting Your Estate

Estate administration is wealth management after you pass. Organizing financial affairs before you die can be key in asset preservation and dispute resolution, not leaving anyone behind in the unknown.

Receiving practical advice from properly trained and experienced lawyers can solidify clients’ assets, so your family can process grief and focus on funeral services

We’ll cover wills, trusts, and the entire process of estate administration, along with the services we provide to leave you feeling protected.

What is a Will?

Future generations look more like partners than clients to us

Death can be scary; financial planning is even more so if you base your financial planning on business and legal news!

But, if you begin planning your entire family’s will, estates, and trusts with a lawyer on your team who has extensive experience and knowledge, you’ll do fine.

An estate is any property you own at the time of your death; this enters probate when you die. If you do not have a will with a trustee named, your property will fall to litigation of probate court.

A lack of an estate plan, or costly estate litigation, is not the legacy you want to leave behind.

Secure your grandchild’s future

A last will and testament are vital in financial planning. Naming an heir can prevent the unwanted distribution of power and wealth to places other than your children or their financial protection.

What is a Living Trust?

Proper Estate Administration

An equivalent part of an estate plan is your living trust. In a living trust, you assign a trustee (or trustees) to manage your estates and trusts. Often, while drafting the living trust, you will name yourself the original trustee.

Finding a legal partner:

The law adds stipulations to who is eligible to become trustees: it can’t be minor children or anyone who has broken federal law. You may also want to consider someone local who doesn’t have to cross the border to help.

Your lawyers, while providing legal services, may advise that you all update your living wills at once.

Preventing estate litigation

Living trusts are essential in succession planning, as you’ll dictate any number of successor trustees to take over estates you have in your personal and legal holdings. This process works similarly to a will when you die.

Contents of wills, estates, and trusts will pass on to the successor trustees. Daily wealth management or legal stake in the estate administration may still be your sole responsibility. Or you may share it like a business.

Having your partner take care of you

Line of succession isn’t the only thing having a living trust with one, or several successor trustees can add to your estate planning. If you’re medically unable to care for your estate and trust anymore, your succession will be able to take over and follow the personal directives as you dictated in the Declaration of Trust.

A proper living trust, with services by competent lawyers who care for clients, can solidify your enduring powers of attorney for these dire occasions as well.

treating clients as partners and partner

What Should You Place in Your Living Trust?

The most common items people place in their living trusts are those with significant expenses:

Real Estate or Housing
Vehicles
Valuables or Artwork
Precious Metals or Priceless Items
Patents and Copyrights
Stocks, Bonds, and life insurance
Tax planning documents

Business owners’ interests: Partnerships, LLCs, clients, and Organizations

Other assets, services, partnerships

Are There Different Types of Living Trusts?

Short answer: yes

There are two kinds of living trusts, categorized by their revocability:

Revocable Living Trust:

In a revocable living trust, legislation can be requested by the grantor to cancel, change, or update the original document without needing judicial permission or permission from all named successors.

When the law gets news of the grantor’s death, a revocable living trust converts automatically to an irrevocable living trust. This is why your want to choose a successor who you trust as a true partner in business.

Irrevocable Living Trust:

Changing the terms of an irrevocable living trust requires judicial permission. By law, a judge or a collection of signatures from all named successors to the trust would be needed to make changes.

What Does “Per Capita” and “Per Stirpes” Mean?

Expressing personal directives

Language Lesson:

These Latin phrases are pivotal when transferring asset ownership by letter of the law. We tell our clients simply:

Per Stirpes

“Per stirpes” means “of the branches.” Or, in this case, “down the branch.”

In a will, it states that if any beneficiaries die before receiving their inheritance, it is passed to their beneficiaries.

Per Capita

If a will is determined to be “per capita” or “by the head,” then the assets in the estate are distributed evenly among all of the surviving heirs.

In this way, it’s as if the estate comes directly from the “head” or the part of the branch where the decedent is listed, spreading outward evenly.

Do I Need a Living Trust or Will?

While estate planning, lawyers advise you to consider your enduring powers of attorney and personal directives when dealing with wills, estates, and trusts; naming a designated beneficiary that you can count on rather than having your wills and trusts tied up in litigation until provincial law decides where how the assets are distributed.

Speak to a Lawyer to Help You Make Informed Decisions

When you’re ready, call the team of lawyers at Getz Collins and Associates a call at 403-934-2500 to schedule a consultation.