Focused And Personalized Attention
Concerning Your Estate Planning Needs

Blended families require careful estate planning

On Behalf of | Mar 11, 2021 | Estate Planning |

People who have children and get remarried need to give careful thought to the best way to ensure that everyone in the blended family gets their fair share of the estate. It isn’t usually sufficient to simply write a will that leaves everything to your spouse because there’s a chance that they won’t provide your children with the support you intended.

Instead, it’s best to assign assets to specific individuals through the use of trusts. This enables you to set specific guidelines for what will happen with the assets.

A trust can pass some assets down to your spouse and the remainder to your children. If your spouse passes away after you, the remainder of the assets in the trust would go down to your children. This type of trust must be handled carefully, so be sure that your attorney knows that this is what you want to happen.

Set your health care proxy

While it doesn’t have anything to do with your assets, you need to determine who will make your health care decisions and name that person in the health care power of attorney. This can help to quell battles between your spouse and your adult children if there are differences in opinion about what should happen if you’re incapacitated.

Unfortunately, there are many things that can go awry in these cases, so it’s best to work with an experienced estate planning attorney. This can help to prevent a lot of issues between family members after you pass away. It also puts you in control of what happens to your assets.

Let’s Do This Together.

FindLaw Network