Roswell Estate Planning Lawyer

Estate planning: it’s one of the few tasks you’ll take care of that lasts the rest of your life — and beyond. With a well-crafted estate plan, you can feel more at ease knowing that your loved ones have the information and preparations needed just in case the worst comes your way. Reach out to a Roswell estate planning lawyer to get started. With preparations made, everyone in your life can feel greater peace of mind.

A bare-minimum estate plan includes a will, guardianship arrangements for dependents, and beneficiary designations on all your accounts. Estate planning can also go the extra mile, with many individuals who can benefit from having preparations like advance healthcare directives, asset protection trusts, powers of attorney, digital asset planning, and a strategy for probate proceedings.

New Mexico Financial Law is a client-trusted Roswell estate planning law firm. You can rely upon us for making some of the most important preparations of your lifetime. We can provide you with a knowledgeable and experienced estate planning attorney in Roswell to create a personalized strategy that conforms to your unique goals and situation. Schedule a no-obligation consultation and estate plan review with an attorney near you when you call (505) 503-1637 or contact us online today.

What Types of Documents Can I Arrange With My Roswell Estate Planning Attorney?

A Roswell estate planning lawyer can assist you, including with incapacity and probate planning. You can also refer your personal representative to your attorney when the time comes for assistance with estate administration during probate.

As you determine the strategies needed for your personalized estate plan, consider whether you could benefit from any of the following:

• A last will and testament (highly recommended for all situations)
• An advance healthcare directive, which includes durable power of attorney for healthcare, instructions for care (AKA a living will), and a primary physician designation
• Guardianship planning
• Beneficiary designations and other arrangements for primary accounts, including bank accounts, retirement accounts, and life insurance policies
• A living trust (or other trust arrangements, such as a Medicaid asset protection trust)
• Digital account/asset inventory
• A letter of intent, stating the reasons for your will and estate arrangements, along with preferences for the handling of your remains and a memorial service
• Business succession and continuity planning

The right arrangements for you depend completely on the nature of your estate, your ideal outcomes for heirs, and your other specific goals. A Roswell estate planning lawyer can meet with you during a confidential consultation to discuss all of these aspects and listen to your individual needs in detail. They can then recommend a one-of-a-kind estate plan that offers the maximum potential to help you succeed in all your goals for this life — and the next.

Why Do I Need a Will?

A will is a critical document for any adult to have. It is the only way to legally enforce your wishes for how you want your estate — which consists of all the things you owned in life — distributed to your heirs.

Dying Without a Will Means Your Estate Is Intestate

Should you die intestate, meaning you die without having a valid will, then state laws determine who inherits everything. Your estate is usually split evenly between your surviving spouse and children (or other direct descendants). In these cases, your spouse inherits 100% of your community property and 25% of your separate property, with your children inheriting the remaining 75% split evenly amongst them.

If you don’t have any surviving children or descendants when you die, your spouse inherits everything (NM Stat § 45-2-102). 

If you have surviving children or other descendants but not a surviving spouse, your children split everything evenly (NM Stat § 45-2-103).

If you have neither a surviving spouse nor any surviving direct descendants, then your immediate next-of-kin inherits your estate. These parties can include, in order of priority:

1. Parents
2. Siblings
3. Grandparents
4. Other next-of-kin

The first category that is available inherits the entirety of the estate, split evenly among all surviving members. If, for example, you pass without a surviving spouse, children, or parents, all of your living siblings would inherit your estate, split evenly amongst them.

In effect, dying intestate means you give up your rights to determine who inherits your property. It also forces the person representing your estate to take measures to ensure that assets are split evenly among the category of heirs, meaning they often have to sell off everything you owned.

To gain control over what happens to your estate, you need to make sure you have a validly executed will. You also want to ensure that your will does not leave lingering questions or invite contests and competing claims from disgruntled parties. 

If you are ready to make sure that you have a will prepared in case an unexpected tragedy strikes, connect with a reputable estate planning law firm in New Mexico that can assist you. They can help you prepare a will, form a strategy to keep it up-to-date, and recommend any other estate planning strategies that could benefit you and your loved ones.

Non-Probate Assets That Can Transfer Without a Will

You can automatically set certain assets to transfer to your preferred party without having to leave them in your will. These arrangements have the advantage of bypassing probate, which means that the details of your estate can be kept more private.

Assets that transfer outside of a will include:

• Community property co-owned with a spouse
• Assets held in a living trust
• Accounts with a payable-on-death or transfer-on-death designation
• Accounts and insurance policies with a survivor beneficiary
• Property titled under a joint tenancy with rights of survivorship (JTWROS) deed

You can also take other measures to prepare your estate for probate. For example, you can set aside enough liquid cash to cover your final year’s income taxes and any other predicted estate expenses. Refer to a Roswell probate lawyer for guidance and ideas on how to make life as easy as possible for your survivors when it comes to managing your final estate.

What Provisions Can I Put Into My Will?

A standard will should include:

• Declaration of testamentary intent — A standard statement indicating that you intend to use the document as your will and that it should be entered into probate to distribute your estate.

• A complete inventory of estate property — An accounting of all property you intend to transfer to your heirs through your will.

• A list of bequests and devises — A bequest is an arrangement to transfer personal, non-titled property to an heir. A devise is an arrangement to transfer titled property to someone, who is known as a “devisee.”

• Nomination of a personal representative — Also known as your executor, this person is responsible for managing your estate and handling estate administration duties through probate.
• Guardianship arrangements for dependents — If you have minor children at the time you create your will, make sure that your will declares the person you prefer to become their guardian. You can also name a guardian for an adult dependent with special needs.

A will can also include any of the following provisions:

• Revocation clause — Announces that all previous, back-dated versions of your will are invalid.

• Testamentary capacity clause — Declares that you are mentally competent, you understand what your will contains, you understand that the will is going to dictate what happens to your estate, and that you are not creating the will as a result of undue influence, duress, or (to your knowledge) fraud.

• Contingent beneficiaries — If one of your beneficiaries has passed or is otherwise unable to inherit, you can list a backup beneficiary.

• Residuary clause — States the beneficiary of any residual assets in your estate, if any property remains in your estate that has not been disposed of through the will.

• No contest clause — Automatically disinherits any party who raises an unsuccessful challenge to the will or complaint against the estate.
• Contingent personal representative clause — Names a backup personal representative if your primary choice(s) cannot serve.

In addition to your will, you can list all important account numbers and professionals who helped you with important affairs in life, potentially including your estate planning attorney in Roswell. Keep this information in a separate file, and notify the person you nominated to serve as your personal representative of its location.

Creating Powers of Attorney and Advance Healthcare Directives

If you are ever incapacitated — which can include being in a medical coma or losing the mental capacity to make your own decisions — then your loved ones could be in a bind. They might be unable to access your financial accounts, for example, which could cause you to default on a mortgage or be unable to pay for healthcare costs.

A durable financial power of attorney designates someone (known as your agent) to handle your affairs while you are incapacitated. It permits them to perform many of the same actions you could on your own if you had the capacity to do so. They could, for example, have permission to access investment accounts to redistribute your portfolio or take a needed withdrawal. 

You can determine what permissions you feel are necessary versus those that you would rather restrict with the help of an estate planning lawyer in Roswell.

Your attorney can also help you prepare an advance healthcare directive. This set of documents names an agent with durable power of attorney for healthcare, which gives the agent permission to make key care decisions while you are incapacitated. You can leave them instructions for care (AKA a living will) to direct them to take you to a certain doctor, for example, or to refuse certain pain medications when you are facing imminent death. Your advance directive also names a physician who has to be consulted before you are declared incapacitated.

Review your options for incapacity planning with a Roswell estate planning lawyer to determine whether you would want a durable power of attorney, an advance directive, or other means such as a trust.

How Do Trusts Work in Connection With My Estate?

A trust is a special legal arrangement that owns the property you transfer to it. This property is managed by a trustee, and it is promised to your selected beneficiaries. Depending on the way you arrange your trust, your beneficiaries can receive steady payments from it in your lifetime, or they may only receive a distribution following your death. 

Optionally, a trust could remain in effect after your death, giving it the chance to retain its investments and produce income for your beneficiaries.

In this way, wills and trusts can work hand-in-hand to help you manage your estate when you pass. As mentioned above, if you start a living trust during your lifetime, the assets in it are removed from your estate. They can be transferred automatically to beneficiaries by the trustee, according to the rules left in the trust formation documents.

Alternatively, if you do not have a living trust, you can ask your personal representative to use some of your estate’s funds to form a testamentary trust after you die.

Trusts can be an important part of wealth building, legacy planning, and end-of-life planning. For example, if you are concerned about your heirs having their inheritance taken away by creditor claims, you can form a testamentary trust or keep a living trust intact after your lifetime. The trustee can then be instructed to only make a distribution at pre-arranged times or according to their sole discretion.

Alternatively, if you are concerned about a surviving spouse receiving most of your estate property, remarrying, and then cutting your children out of their inheritance, then you can form a bypass/credit shelter trust to preserve the assets for future generations.

There are many possible estate planning strategies that take advantage of trusts. Refer to a Roswell estate planning lawyer for guidance and information on which trusts offer the most potential and align closest with your ideal outcomes.

Protect What Matters With Our Roswell Estate Planning Law Firm

New Mexico Financial Law can assist you with creating a will, starting a trust, arranging for power of attorney, or conducting any other needed aspects of estate planning. You can rely on an experienced estate planning attorney in Roswell to listen closely to your goals and form a personalized strategy to help you accomplish them.

Estate plans have a ripple effect, impacting generations after you. When you are ready to start leaving behind a better world for them, our Roswell estate planning law firm is here to assist. Make an appointment with an experienced Roswell estate planning lawyer today when you call our offices at (505) 503-1637 or contact us online.