By: Matthew C. Shepard

Attorney & Counselor at Law

Shepard Law Office PLC

Have you ever heard a term and wondered what exactly does that mean? This article was written to identify five of the basic “tools” in an estate plan. In later articles I will go into more details of these individual tools.

Estate Planning – This can best be summarized as financial planning for now and the future. Normally we can break this into three sub-categories: Planning for the now, planning for the future and planning for final distribution. This is a very broad term and should involve insurance, financial advising and legal counsel to be done properly.

Last Will and Testament – A document that tells the family, friends and courts what you want done with your assets upon passing away, every estate plan at a minimum will have a will.

Living Trust – A living trust is a document that creates an entity. This entity holds legal title to property. This is done so that property that is in trust does not go through probate court. You may still possess the ability to buy, sell or transfer property depending on the type of trust.

Medical Power of Attorney – A Medical Power of Attorney authorizes an individual (called a patient advocate) to make medical decisions on your behalf when you are unable to do so yourself. Medical directives tell the patient advocate what your desires are in reference to life support, pain medication, etc.

Durable Power of Attorney – A Durable Power of Attorney authorizes an individual (called an attorney-in-fact) to make financial decisions on your behalf. These powers can be concurrent with your and/or when you are unable to make medical decisions yourself.

Enhanced Life Estate Deed – Also called a ladybird deed, this document is a deed on property and it allows the owner to do anything that can do with a regular property deed, however upon passing away the property automatically transfers ownership to the individual listed as the remainder. I will be going this document in much greater detail at a later date – this is a newer estate planning tool and one that I believe will have a great impact on the estate planning community.

Remember, this document is for information purposes only and should not be taken as legal advice. Also, these definitions are very basic and used to give you a basic understanding of what each item is, in later articles are I will dive deeper into types of trusts, types of wills, etc… Thanks for reading…