The city of Rio Communities embraces the idea of creating a great life for yourself and your family. With estate planning, you can continue that tradition, ensuring that you leave behind a legacy that can provide for the people you care about most. It can also help secure your own financial protection and advocate for your health preferences through incapacity planning.
A Rio Communities estate planning lawyer can help you through every step of the process. When you come to New Mexico Financial & Estate Planning Attorneys, we provide you with experienced legal guidance and assistance. From updating a will to creating a trust to ensuring your advance healthcare directive accurately reflects your values, you gain invaluable support while developing a one-of-a-kind, personalized estate plan.
Get started today when you call us at (505) 503-1637 or contact us online to schedule a confidential, no-obligation consultation with an experienced attorney near you.
Your estate plan can include any number of documents, including:
Your preparations can also include the following:
By working with a Rio Communities estate planning attorney, you can review your options and select the right combination of documents and strategies for your unique needs.
A will is a legal document that can include the following information:
Without a will, all of your probated estate property must be distributed according to New Mexico’s intestate succession laws. These laws force the representative of your estate to distribute all of your property to a surviving spouse and/or a single category of surviving relatives. They cannot deviate from the property distribution arrangements described under the law.
Wills, in other words, provide a legally recognized way to choose your own heirs. In addition, some property can be transferred outside of probate. These assets can include:
These capabilities mean that your heirs can receive your property without the delays, expense, and complications of probate. That quality makes trusts particularly beneficial for some households. While other non-probate transfers can only apply to specific types of property, a trust can hold nearly any property that would normally be in the original owner’s name.
A living trust takes ownership of all property titled to it, just like a corporation or LLC can. This property is managed by a trustee, who can also be the person who formed the trust. The trustee is responsible for protecting trust assets and distributing them to the proper beneficiaries when the time comes.
Often, a living trust includes a successor or co-trustee and a clause stating that they should transfer its contents to designated heirs immediately after the trust creator’s death. These arrangements offer benefits for families seeking to avoid probate while maintaining greater control and privacy for estate assets.
However, a living trust is not a complete replacement for a will. It cannot, for example, declare an individual’s choice of executor. Nor can it nominate a guardian.
Accordingly, households in Rio Communities may want to consider creating both a will and a living trust.
An individual can also request that their estate’s personal representative create a trust after their death by including a special provision in their will. The assets used to fund the trust must first go through probate.
These types of trusts are typically used when someone wants to delay transfers of their estate property. They may want to do this because their heir is a minor or because they want to stretch out transfers over a longer period. Some testamentary trusts can even provide income for families for multiple generations.
While every estate plan should include a will, the advantages of using a living trust vs. a testamentary trust vary depending on your goals, your situation, and the risks you want to avoid. Discuss your goals with a Rio Communities estate planning lawyer to learn about the optimal arrangements for your needs.
A “power of attorney” refers to a special type of legal document. This document involves two main parties: a principal and an agent. The principal designates specific authority to their agent, allowing the agent to act in their place during certain interactions or transactions.
There are two main types of powers of attorney to consider creating in Rio Communities as part of your estate plan:
You may want just one or both, depending on the goals you want to accomplish and the situations you want to prepare for.
A financial power of attorney can be created by anyone who is over the age of 18 (or an emancipated minor) and who has the intellectual capacity to understand the arrangements they are making.
They can use a statutory power of attorney form to handle the task, but most people would be better off using a customized power of attorney created with the help of a lawyer in Rio Communities.
As part of their financial power of attorney, an individual should include the following information:
Once your financial power of attorney document has been finalized, it must be signed and notarized (NM Stat § 45-5B-105). It then goes into effect either immediately or when the activating condition occurs.
Durable financial powers of attorney remain active even after your incapacitation. That makes them useful in situations where you encounter a medical emergency, end up in a coma, or experience a notable decline in your mental capabilities.
In these situations, having someone who can help you manage your finances and support the people you care about is highly important. While there are risks involved in giving someone these abilities, there is also the risk that your health, finances, or loved ones might suffer while no one is able to offer assistance. Your loved ones may even have to petition a court for guardianship or conservatorship, a time-consuming, invasive, and expensive process.
Having a durable financial power of attorney in place gives you someone who can step in the moment they are needed. You can even delay their authority until the moment you are incapacitated — an arrangement that’s referred to as a “springing power of attorney.”
Coupled with a healthcare power of attorney, your financial power of attorney reduces the risk that you will be helpless and financially vulnerable after you have been incapacitated, whether gradually or suddenly.
A healthcare power of attorney operates much the same way as a financial power of attorney. The primary difference is that it gives an agent permission to make healthcare decisions and handle other related business on the principal’s behalf.
Permissions given under a healthcare power of attorney can include:
Like with a financial power of attorney, you can set specific rules and restrictions for your healthcare agent.
For example, you can specify that you don’t want certain surgeries performed or that you would prefer to be treated in your own home, to the extent possible. You can also give your agent consent to make decisions according to their own discretion, allowing them to determine what would be best given the situation at hand.
The instructions you give your healthcare agent are sometimes referred to as your “living will.” This is because they determine what happens to you when you aren’t able to communicate and are at risk of passing from your condition.
Your living will and healthcare power of attorney collectively form what is known as an advance healthcare directive. Your advance directive will also include your designation of a primary physician, who can determine whether you have been incapacitated and, thereby, whether the rest of your advance directive activates.
Like with a financial power of attorney, there are statutory versions available that turn the document into a type of generic form. However, because of the sensitivity and complexity of the decisions involved, you may wish to discuss your options with an estate planning lawyer in New Mexico. They can help you customize your document and create detailed instructions that reveal your wishes, your beliefs, and the things you consider most important.
Creating a will, forming a trust, and going through incapacity planning can collectively protect you and your loved ones from the worst-case scenarios. While none of us can predict the future, we can use strategies to record our wishes in a legally enforceable format. We can also anticipate challenges, allowing us to prepare our loved ones for the time when that crucial moment comes, and our estate plan goes into effect.
When you are ready to start planning, New Mexico Financial & Estate Planning Attorneys are here to help. Schedule a confidential consultation and estate plan review with our offices today when you call us at (505) 503-1637 or contact us online.
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