Estate Planning

Estate planning is the process of anticipating and arranging for the disposal of your assets in the event of disability or death, either for yourself or a family member.  In light of legislative changes to the Estate Tax, modern estate planning has more to do with your family circumstances than it does with the size of your Estate.

The Law Office of Ben Williams, PLLC offers practical guidance throughout the estate planning process to help you organize your assets, avoid unnecessary disputes, and ensure that your wishes are carried out both during your lifetime and after your passing. This is commonly done through the preparation of the following documents:

• Will – a will allows you to designate where you would like your property to go upon your death.  It also allows you to designate who would care for your minor children in the event that you and your spouse passed away.
• Power of Attorney – a statutory durable power of attorney allows you to designate someone to make financial and legal decisions for you.  It can be effective immediately, or more commonly, only upon your disability.
• Medical Power of Attorney – a medical power of attorney (with HIPAA disclosure) allows you to designate someone else to make medical decisions for you in the event that you cannot.
• Directive to Physicians (Living Will) – an advance directive allows you to make decisions ahead of time regarding terminal or irreversible conditions (i.e. the “pull the plug document”)
• Declaration of Guardians – a declaration of guardians allows you to designate who you would like to be your guardian in the event that a court decided that you were no longer fit to handle your own matters.  It also allows you to specifically exclude someone from being your guardian.  This document tends to be either the least or most important part of an estate plan.
• Trusts – there are many different types of trusts, but what all of them do is to separate who controls the property in a trust (the Trustee) from who benefits from the property (the Beneficiary).  A revocable living trust is a commonly created trust to assist in the avoidance of probate, or to allow for more advanced property distributions that are beyond the scope of a simple will.
• Family Limited Partnerships or LLCs – Allow flexibility in the holding and transfer of assets between related parties.

Our comprehensive expertise allows us to quickly analyze even the most complex assets in order to determine the most effective estate planning for your needs.

Representative Transactions

• Estate planning for real estate investors.
• Estate planning for high net worth individuals.
• Estate planning for modern families.
• Probating of Wills in Travis, Williamson, and surrounding counties