Estate Planning

Protect Both Your Family and Your Assets: Hire a Grand Junction, CO Estate Planning Attorney

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A Grand Junction, CO estate planning attorney could be useful to you, especially when your net worth exceeds $100,000 and you have a substantial number of assets. Poor estate planning tears apart loving families, and while you think that it would not happen to yours, people fight over the smallest things. You want to eliminate all questions and doubts about how your assets will be distributed. An estate planning lawyer lights your path so that you do not make costly missteps.

State Laws Rule Everything

State laws serve a quintessential role in estate planning, and each state varies from the other. You cannot depend on what you learned about laws in another state because of how state law dictates what can and cannot enter a trust, will, or financial power of attorney. If you live in Colorado, then you want to hire a Grand Junction, CO estate planning attorney. This legal professional will acquaint you with the specific laws of your state. People might think that they can hire a friend or someone from out of state. One serious problem will derail that plan. Because the laws differ in each state and you live in Colorado, the lawyer views the law from the lens of his home state. This means that when the time comes to execute your will, the laws of Colorado could change things in ways that you had not expected.

Understanding a Complex Family Situation

Several categories exist where estate planning takes a turn toward a windy and complicated road. Sometimes, they even wrote the road signs in another language. Imagine navigating that! A Grand Junction, CO estate planning lawyer can tighten your grip on complex situations like:
  • Recent divorces
  • Underage children
  • Owning a business
  • No children
  • Having a problem child
  • Recently lost a spouse or family member
Difficult circumstances require the careful guidance of an expert estate planning attorney. You want an expert who understands how to create legal documents that everyone must legally honor at the time of your passing. In this way, too, you eliminate the risk of conflict in the family and sparking deep-cutting hatred and resent among family members. Unfortunately, this scenario happens all too often with a poorly planned will.

What Tasks Does an Estate Attorney Complete?

You have a few things that an estate planning attorney will undertake, such as:
  • Drafting up a will
  • Designating the beneficiaries
  • Seeking ways to avoid probate court
  • Setting up trusts to protect your assets

Usually, an estate planning attorney will charge you a flat fee when they draft any legally binding documents. You could hire them on an hourly basis to handle disputes and act on your behalf. This ensures that when they carry out your will, it is conducted according to your last wishes.

Let us say that one of the family members decides to contest the will. In that case, you want to consult a Grand Junction, CO estate planning lawyer because lawsuits can drain the estate funds, and all beneficiaries will suffer because of this. An estimated 99 percent of all estates will not owe on federal estate tax, and only an estate with a combined value of $11,400,000 will need to file a form. Before you go bouncing off the walls, however, you should first know that state estate taxes could still have application. Colorado, for example, adds an estate tax of 35 percent for properties over $5 million.

If you have questions or concerns, it might be time to find an attorney. Trace Tyler is an experienced estate attorney who services the Denver, Colorado area. Contact him today!