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I am a grandparent – How should my estate plan be influenced by this?

Published on October 17th, 2019

Estate Planning Lawyer

The stereotype that grandparents like to “spoil” their grandchildren exists for good reason. Being a grandparent can be a wonderful experience and therefore grandparents often wish to give back to the children that bring them so much joy. Many grandparents aim to be able to provide for their grandchildren in certain ways both while they are alive and after they pass away. It is important to understand that an experienced estate planning attorney can help grandparents to achieve both of these aims. Numerous estate planning tools are designed to help individuals provide for their loved ones both during life and after death.

Estate Planning for Grandparents

One of the main estate planning tools that American grandparents like to use for the transfer of property, income or other assets to their children while they remain living is a specific kind of trust. Trusts can also be used to transfer property after death. However, specific living trusts allow individuals to benefit from favorable taxation rates while transferring property before death. An added benefit to setting up a living trust designed to benefit a grandchild is that a grandparent can set terms that must be met before the trust pays out. For example, a trust can be created in which the income it holds may only be used for educational expenses.

In addition, grandparents may wish to name grandchildren as beneficiaries in their wills and/or in association with a retirement account and/or life insurance policy. An experienced estate planning attorney can help grandparents to explore all the ways in which estate planning tools may be used to help provide for grandchildren both now and/or well into the future. Your needs, preferences and priorities can be addressed according to your unique circumstances and can usually be updated if and when your needs and/or preferences change.

Legal Guidance Is Available

If you have yet to create an estate plan, you need to modify and/or add to an existing estate plan, have questions about taxation consequences of your choices or simply want to explore your estate planning options, please do not hesitate to connect with an attorney experienced in this area of law today. Estate plans are meant to serve as living documents. Practically speaking, this means that they should be updated as often as an individual’s life circumstances and/or preferences change. Very few estate planning documents cannot be altered once they have been created. So, if you are now a grandparent and you would like that role reflected in your estate plan, please know that an experienced attorney can both help you with this current task and with any future updates you may wish to make to your estate planning documentation. A law firm has extensive experience helping grandparents create and modify their estate plans and would be happy to help you explore your options.

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