3 Tips For Estate Planning For A Blended Family

1. Simple wills will likely not be sufficient to address the goals of your current spouse and children from a prior marriage or stepchildren. A trust will be the better option. However, the specifics of your family fact pattern will determine the kind of trust and what is included in the trust that should be in keeping with the financial goals for your family. Although it requires a little bit more time and attention, it can avoid many misgivings and acrimony with your loved ones and plan for an easier transition.

2. A financial power of attorney is an important and powerful tool. With blended families, it takes on additional significance and the agent(s) you appoint should be willing to follow your plan when you are the most vulnerable and incapable of handling your financial affairs.

3. Appointing your agent under the health care proxy is another important and thoughtful decision that must be made. Is your agent going to be your current spouse or your adult child(ren)? These are important people to be considered. It can be quite devastating to your loved one to be unable to participate in your healthcare decisions or to be not involved in your life and death decisions.

These are all significant deliberations to be had. It is better to start now when you have the ability and capability to handle these subjects. Give us a call @ 516-570-4016 so you can talk it through with us and we can guide you through this process.