When considering estate planning, many people can procrastinate without understanding the consequences of their delay. No one is truly comfortable thinking about what happens in the case of injury, disability, or even death, especially if young children are involved. However, one of the best ways to achieve peace of mind is to have a complete estate plan in place to make sure your family is taken care of when the time comes.
There are some primary documents when it comes to estate planning, ranging from a Will to a Power of Attorney. Laws can vary by state, so it’s important to have each document drawn up by a local attorney who’s familiar with each state’s regulations and guidelines.
Will In Alpine Utah
The Will is what many people think in terms of complete estate planning. This document primarily addresses three important questions, but only comes into effect upon one’s death. First, it designates who controls the administration of one’s estate after someone passes away. Second, it establishes who receives the assets. Third, it designates legal guardians and conservators to handle the medical and financial decisions if there are any surviving minors. This document is vital in securing the foundation of your final matters if you do not have a Revocable Living Trust.
Power of Attorney: Medical and Financial
There are two main types of power of attorney documents everybody needs: a Financial Power of Attorney and a Medical Power of Attorney. These two documents are only effective while one is alive. They grant a person control of financial and medical affairs in the case of disability, a coma, or any circumstance that would prevent you from making your own decisions. Each document helps prevent the expense of a court proceeding to determine who is allowed to manage your financial and medical decisions when you are unable to do so.
Living Will
The Living Will, also known as an advanced medical directive, is used to officially state, in advance, whether one wants to refuse or terminate the use of artificial life support should the situation arise. This document also allows an individual to state in advance whether he or she should receive food and water in the event the Living Will is in effect. By establishing your desires in advance, it helps remove such burden from your family’s shoulders.
Living Trust
A Living Trust, also known as a revocable trust or revocable living trust, is an alternative to the standard Will. It is a tremendously flexible document that can provide for the management of one’s assets while alive and upon his or her passing. This method of estate planning enables exceptional control over one’s assets. If drafted properly, it limits or eliminates certain taxes and offers a tremendous degree of asset protection for one’s heirs should they ever gets divorced or has other creditor problems.
What to Do With Estate Planning Documents In Alpine Utah
Many people are unsure what to do with their Wills and other Estate Planning Documents after they have them created. The documents generally sit around in a file without anyone knowing of their existence. This is exactly the wrong thing to do. Your Will is the document which tells how your property should be divided after your death. Every individual person should have his or her own. A married couple should have 2 wills among them rather than just a single will. After fully executing your Will according to state law where you live, you should be certain to let your loved-ones know of its existence and where to find it. You do not need to let them read it, but they should know how to get access to the document. It is highly recommended that it should be kept it in a fireproof box or safe in your home or perhaps in a safe deposit box. It needs to be protected from fire, flood, and other potential disasters. If an unfortunate disaster ends up being your demise, you want your Will to survive that disaster to ensure your wishes are carried out.
Powers of Attorney are documents which give trusted individuals the legal authority to make decisions for you in the event that you are incapacitated. It is highly recommended having two separate documents, a Medical Power of Attorney and a Statutory (or Durable) Power of Attorney. The Medical Power of Attorney gives the named person the ability to make medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated (for instance in a coma). The person named in the Medical Power of Attorney should be someone who is good under pressure and someone you trust to make good medical decisions for you. You should also discuss generally with this person your wishes. The Durable or Statutory Power of Attorney is also a document giving legal authority to someone in the event that you cannot perform on your own, but this document revolves around finances. If you are in a coma or otherwise legally incompetent, you need someone with the ability to pay your bills and access your bank accounts. That is exactly what this document does. In both cases, the people you designate as your agents in these Powers of Attorney should be given a copy of the documents to keep in their possession. This is so that they can easily access the documents and provide proof of their authority quickly and easily if it is ever necessary. You should also keep the original in your possession in a safe place. It is advisable to keep them with your Will.
The last Estate Planning document which most people have is a Living Will. The Living Will is a document which defines your desires if you are incapacitated and need life-sustaining treatment. It tells your doctor whether or not you wish to be placed on life support if you are in a terminal condition. Your doctor should maintain a copy of your Living Will in your medical records. You should also keep a copy of this document with your will. It is extremely important to be prepared for your death. Although it is a difficult topic to consider, it is something each and every one of us is going to face. Being prepared today will help your family in a difficult time because there will be fewer things to worry about. You have already written your wishes on paper. The Powers of Attorney can also help eliminate costly and lengthy legal battles for which there is no time when your life is at stake.
Where To Keep Your Estate Planning Documents When They Are Completed
As important as it is to make your estate planning documents such as a will or living trust and pour over will, durable powers of attorney, and healthcare powers of attorney is where to keep those documents. Finding a safe secure place to keep your estate planning documents is very important for the fact that those documents are no good if they are destroyed, lost, or missing.
Alpine Utah have laws that support that a missing or lost will is presumed to be destroyed or revoked or no longer any good, unless there is evidence presented otherwise. This is difficult to overcome so it is very important to keep your documents in place they cannot be lost or destroyed. This safe place could be a safety deposit box in a bank or in a fire proof safe in your house. A safe should only include important documents and no valuables so a potential thief will not be tempted to take it. It is best to let the person you selected as a personal representative in the will and the backup personal representative know where the will is located so they can retrieve it at the proper time. It is not a good idea to let anyone else know who you do not completely trust because they may attempt to destroy or alter it if it is in their interest. There should be one original will and copies should be kept separate.
Keeping your estate planning documents is almost as important as making them in the first place. If you go to the effort of making an estate plan it is important to make sure that the plan is carried out and the best way to do this is through making sure that your documents can be found. This means that you should inform the person you intend to carry out your estate as an executor or personal representative can actually locate the documents when they are needed. You should tell only a trusted person where they are located so the wrong person does not find them, but also that the right person will be able to locate them when the time is right. A hidden will or living trust that is not found is the same as have no documents at all. A good hiding place is good but too good of a hiding place will prevent the documents from being found at all.
How Estate Planning Lawyers Alpine Utah Can Help You
When you are ready to start your estate planning papers you will need to be thorough and precise as one misconstrued word or a missing initial can change the entire meaning of your estate documents. Your local and state laws are very technical as to who you can have represent your interests in your estate planning documents as well as your power of attorney. There are even stipulations on who can witness your signature.
The laws vary from state to state and one wrong word can make your estate papers null and void. This is why you should entrust the help of viable estate planning lawyers to oversee your legal rights. If you think that you can go online and get a living will or other estates documents and they will be valid and legally binding then you are in for a huge disappointment. Most of the do it yourself documents are a “one size fits all” and you very well know your life is your own and “one size fits all” is not conducive to your situation. It will be your family that will be left behind with no way to enforce your last wishes.
Organizing Your Estate
You will need to let your estate planning lawyers know what you want to happen with your estate when you are no longer alive. You should let someone know where you will put your copies of your power of attorney, insurance papers, living will and any codes or keys to your bank safe deposit box. You should also have extra copies of all of your important documents in a fire proof box as well as all of the original documents on file at your estates lawyer’s office.
Please look at the information below to see which items pertain to your unique situation.
• You have never had any children
• You have children under 15 years of age
• You have property that you own in more than one state.
• You own a business
• You want to leave a portion of your estate to a charity
If any of these statements pertain to your personal situation then you will need estate planning lawyers to make sure that your assets and last wishes are carried out exactly as you want them to be. If you do not use a professional you may end up making your family go through probate and it may take away resources from your family.
DIY Estate Planning
As the recession deepens, more Americans are trading high priced attorneys for DIY estate planning kits online. Yet despite the appealing cost, do online estate planning kits really have what it takes to protect your children, assets or wishes should something happen to you? An Alpine Utah estate planning attorney cuts through the hype to reveal when you can go it alone and when DIY planning is a financial disaster in disguise.
Alpine Utah – Who needs a $300 an hour estate planning lawyer when you can buy an entire DIY will kit online for under $100? That’s the question most Utahans find themselves asking lately, as the creation of computer generated wills, trusts and other estate planning documents make DIY planning seem like a very budget-savvy choice. Yet do these documents really hold weight in the Utah probate courts and will they truly protect your children, assets or wishes should the unthinkable happen? It depends. Certainly someone with no children and assets under $100,000 could possibly benefit from DIY estate planning. The real problem, though, is that you don’t know what you don’t know and like anything in life, one size rarely fits all. In the case of estate planning, one simple mistake can cost your family thousands of dollars and years of headaches if death or incapacity unexpectedly occurs.
So what situations warrant meeting with a qualified estate planning professional over a budget-friendly kit online? Consider the following:
1. You’ve been divorced or remarried- DIY kits rarely take into account the complexities of divorce, remarriage or having children from a previous marriage. Without proper guidance, a mistake in this area could cause a number of problems, including a spouse losing out financially to a child from a previous marriage (as was the case with Ana Nicole Smith) or the disinheritance of children.
2. You have children- If you review documents from a popular online will kit you will often find boilerplate language stating that future children were disinherited under the plan. This really shows just how dangerous these kids can be for parents with minor children. DIY kits also fail to advise parents of the best way to leave an inheritance to their children, thus setting the stage for money problems down the road.
3. You’re in an alternative living situation- Gays, lesbians and life-partners should always meet with a qualified professional when planning for their death or incapacity. Unfortunately, the laws are not on the side of people in non-traditional relationships, so you should always get professional guidance to ensure your family stays protected physically and financially should tragedy strike.
4. You have a special needs child- Parents of special needs children must be extremely cautious when using DIY estate planning kits online. Many parents fail to realize that leaving money outright to a special needs child can jeopardize their ability to qualify for Medicaid or other benefits in the future. Such kits fail to properly advise parents of guardianship issues and other ways to make sure their child is properly cared for in their absence. It only takes one tiny oversight in a DIY estate plan to cause the entire thing to backfire, or even become null and void in Georgia or in other states. And of course, by the time people realize such a problem exist, it’s often too late to go back or costs a fortune to fix.
Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer
It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 676-5506
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Alpine, Utah
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This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2008)
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Alpine, Utah
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Overlooking Alpine
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Location in Utah County and the state of Utah
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 Alpine, Utah
Location in the United States
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| Coordinates: 40°27′23″N 111°46′25″WCoordinates: 40°27′23″N 111°46′25″W[1] | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Utah |
| County | Utah |
| Settled | 1850 |
| Incorporated | January 19, 1855 |
| Area | |
| • Total | 7.96 sq mi (20.60 km2) |
| • Land | 7.96 sq mi (20.60 km2) |
| • Water | 0.00 sq mi (0.00 km2) |
| Elevation
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4,951 ft (1,509 m) |
| Population
(2020)
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| • Total | 10,251 |
| • Density | 1,319.67/sq mi (509.55/km2) |
| Time zone | UTC-7 (MST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-6 (MDT) |
| ZIP code |
84004
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| Area codes | 385, 801 |
| FIPS code | 49-00540[3] |
| GNIS feature ID | 1438174[4] |
| Website | City of Alpine |
Alpine is a city on the northeastern edge of Utah County, Utah. The population was 10,251 at the time of the 2020 census. Alpine has been one of the many quickly-growing cities of Utah since the 1970s, especially in the 1990s. This city is thirty-two miles southeast of Salt Lake City. It is located on the slopes of the Wasatch Range north of Highland and American Fork. The west side of the city runs above the Wasatch Fault.[5]
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