The final month of 2017 will begin this Friday and with it, many will be making a mad dash to wrap up various projects that they started during the year. Finalizing things during the waning weeks of the year is complicated by other priorities including work and family celebrations, holidays and vacations. Even with so much on our plates at this time of year, there are some tasks which can be undertaken during December that will help maximize the effectiveness of your estate plan.

1. Make annual gifts to friends and relatives. Each year, every individual can gift $14,000 individually to as many beneficiaries as they wish. A married couple can pool their gifting and give a collective $28,000 to their beneficiaries. This is a great way to reduce the size of your taxable estate while benefiting the people you care about without any tax consequences.

2. Complete beneficiary designations on your paid on death assets. Life insurance, annuities and most retirement accounts allow owners to designate the beneficiaries of these assets to allow beneficiaries to claim assets without court intervention. Failure to designate a beneficiary often leaves a person’s estate as a beneficiary and then requires the formality of a full estate administration.

3. Finalize your estate planning documents. If you’ve started working with an attorney and have yet to finalize your documents, finishing the process before the end of the year will provide you and your family with a sense of closure and security prior to the holidays. It will also leave you with one less goal to accomplish next year.

4. Review your existing estate planning documents. Whether it’s been a year or ten, most people don’t keep the details of their estate plan front of mind for long after they’ve completed the process.   A review of your existing documents with or without your attorney’s help can help clarify if your current planning still makes sense with your current situation.

5. Fund existing trusts. One of the biggest estate planning mistakes is unfortunately very common. When a client executes a trust, the work is only half done. Properly funding the trust, regardless of what type of trust it is, is what keeps a trust agreement from becoming nothing more than a very expensive piece of paper.

6. Prepare Health Care Proxies and Durable Power of Attorneys. Preparing for disability/incapacity is a complicated and time consuming process. On the other hand, the basic documents, a health care proxy and a durable power of attorney, can be prepared relatively quickly and cheaply. Even if you have no other planning in place, having these documents prepare before year’s end is a no-brainer.

7. Speaking with your fiduciaries. Executors, trustees and guardians all have great power and responsibility with regard to your family and your assets. Regular conversations with these important people helps to ensure that they remain the right choices for these roles. Timing these conversations for the end of the year can bring a year’s worth of perspective to these discussions.

8. Discussing the basics of your estate plan with your children. As children grow into adults, exposing them to the specifics of your planning is a good way to prepare them for what to expect when you are gone. Although these are difficult discussions to have, giving your children the knowledge that you have planned for situations like disability and death ultimately can provide them with the security of knowing that things will be set up now to avoid conflict and surprises later.

9. Revising or Creating a List of assets and accounts. It is my general recommendation to avoid listing accounts and specific assets in your estate documents if they are being bequeathed as part of a general gift. This is because the assets often change, get spent, sold or move to different institutions during a person’s lifetime. As an alternative, preparing a summary of the important assets, the location of the assets and other key information to keep alongside your estate planning documents provides a guide for your fiduciaries and beneficiaries to follow. By keeping it as an informal document, it allows you to frequently change it without the need to revise your estate planning documents.

10. Schedule a consultation with an estate planning attorney. While it is difficult to get a new estate plan put together in a month, a consultation is a good first step towards completing an estate plan.   Starting now, and not leaving this for a new year’s task, will help avoid pushing the process down the road without any forward progress.

These tasks alone or collectively can provide further clarity and completeness to your estate plan. By completing these tasks, you can enter 2018 with a more secure and clear estate plan.

Please contact info@levyestatelaw.com for more information.