Any estate planning mistake has the potential to have a negative impact on your life, but some are more powerful than others.
Fortunately, once you have a clear understanding of the most common mistakes, it’s much easier to make the right decisions at every turn of the road.
So, with that in mind, let’s examine a handful of the biggest estate planning mistakes:
- Neglecting to create an estate plan: Year after year, it’s easy to put this off, assuming you’ll have time to do so at a later date. While you may get away with this, it’s not a risk you should be willing to take.
- Forgetting to update your estate plan as necessary: Have you gone through a divorce? Did you receive an inheritance? Did you bring a child into the world? There are many life events that call for you to review and update your estate plan.
- Not planning for a potential disability: Your estate plan should focus on more than what happens to your assets (and debts) upon your passing. You also need to plan for a future disability, such as by creating a power of attorney.
These are far from the only mistakes you can make in regards to your estate plan, but these often come into play.
Once you get serious about avoiding these mistakes, among others, you won’t have nearly as much to worry about. Instead, you’ll feel good about every decision you make. When you feel good about your estate plan, you can rest assured that your loved ones will have peace of mind as well.
Source: FindLaw, “Ten Common Estate Planning Mistakes to Avoid,” accessed April 24, 2018
