Estate Planning establishes a plan for your loved ones to follow after your death by:
- Designing and administering trusts to meet your specific objectives, including living trusts, testamentary trusts, and charitable trusts.
- Serving as executor or co-executor of your estate
- Minimizing estate taxes
- Personal planning for incapacity and death
- Avoiding the expense and delay of probate
- Benefiting charitable organizations
Estate planning is one of the most effective ways to arrange future transfers of wealth and maximize financial well-being for both you and your family. Attorney Brynteson, will and trust lawyer, recognizes that change is inevitable in all stages of life. If you need to review your long-term financial plan or your estate plan, he would be happy to help. Please contact Mark Brynteson, estate planning lawyer, for a complimentary one-to-one personal financial consultation. Attorney Brynteson is committed to serving people in Northern Illinois, including Belvidere and Rockford.
Estate planning is an awkward subject for people to discuss. It makes you deal with the reality that at some point in the future, you may not be able to independently manage your affairs. Avoiding this subject and putting off the creation of a comprehensive estate plan can put you and your family in a difficult position if the unexpected happens. On the other hand, being proactive and putting an estate plan in place can prevent future hardship and uncertainty regarding your health, your assets, and other important matters.
Fortunately, estate planning does not have to be a difficult process, especially when you choose to work with an experienced estate planning attorney. At the Law Offices of Mark D. Brynteson, estate planning Attorney Brynteson uses his 35 years of legal experience to help you understand the different elements of an estate plan and determine which of them are most important for you. Attorney Brynteson is committed to serving people in Northern Illinois, including Belvidere, Rockford, Dekalb and Sycamore.
Attorney Brynteson is a will and estate lawyer with 35 years of experience who will help you determine your goals and objective for your estate. He will assist you in the creation of a plan to distribute your assets and provide for the needs of your beneficiaries. He will also help you develop a strategy to reduce exposure to estate tax consequences. Attorney Brynteson has extensive experience drafting estate planning documents, including:
- Wills
- Trusts
- Special Needs Trusts
- Guardianships
- Health Care Power of Attorneys
- Property Power of Attorneys
- Living Wills
Attorney Brynteson is committed to serving people in Northern Illinois, including Belvidere, Rockford, Dekalb and Sycamore.
Attorney Brynteson is a will and trust lawyer. He has assisted business owners and farmers in creating succession plans, including the use of LLCs, S-Corps, and Family Limited Partnerships. He has helped high-net worth individuals create gifting plans to minimize estate tax exposure and to share their wealth with loved ones while they are alive. He has experience with retirement benefits, which often requires special attention to myriad of tax laws and regulations. He also is experience helping clients make charitable gifts.
A revocable trust can help keep you and your assets out of a court-supervised guardianship and to allow your beneficiaries to avoid the costs and hassles of probate. Mark Brynteson can assist you in structuring trusts and wills to your benefit. He serves people in Northern Illinois, including Winnebago, Boone, Dekalb, Stephenson and McHenry Counties.
Digital Estate Planning
Today the majority of our personal and financial information is stored online. When you create your estate, it may not include your online assets.
Online accounts are usually secured by passwords, account names, and locked information. This information is an important part of your estate plan if you want your loved ones to have easy access to them when you are gone to prevent unnecessary struggle.
The laws and legislation surrounding digital estate management are not keeping up with developing technology; however, there is plenty that you can do to ensure your beneficiaries have the information and access they need when you are gone.
Inventory Your Digital Assets
Make a list of your digital accounts, including banking, credit cards, investments, social media, email, subscriptions, cloud services, utilities, contacts, online stores, personal websites/blogs, photo sharing, cryptocurrency, intellectual property, and all electronic devices.
The most important place to start is your email accounts. Access to your email allows for your family or others acting on your behalf to see if bills or notifications are coming in and need to be taken care of. Additionally, having email access can often serve as confirming credentials for other digital accounts and assets.
This can seem overwhelming, but many of these items may have the same passwords or information and will come together easily once you get started.
Set Up a Plan
The attorney you hire to help handle your estate should be able to tell you what information you need to compile for your loved ones to access the above information and how to store that data safely. Remember that this information should never go in your Will, as your Will is a public document that anyone can access once it is filed after your death.
Detail your wishes with your estate planner and explain what you wish to be done with each account. You can name separate executors for your bank accounts, email accounts, and online investments, or have the same person handle all of it.
You need to think about who should handle these assets or accounts, your spouse or a child whom you trust implicitly. Also, if you feel they will need time to grieve after you pass away, you may consider having a close friend handle these matters until they can be turned over to your family member. These discussions may be uncomfortable to have, but your family will appreciate having had them, so they don’t have to deal with unnecessary conflict on top of your loss.
You can choose if you would like to save all this information in a written document that can be safely secured in a bank safe deposit box or lockbox in your home, or if you would like to hold it into a cloud-based storage system.
Final Thoughts
Digital estate planning doesn’t have to be overwhelming. If you have an estate executor already in place, simply ask them if they are prepared and willing to help you take the additional necessary steps so you can be sure you have a plan for everything.
Attorney Brynteson is committed to serving people in Northern Illinois, including Belvidere, Rockford, Dekalb and Sycamore.
What To Expect From Your Initial Attorney Meeting
- This conversation should only take about an hour.
- There’s no preparation necessary and you are not required to bring anything with you. However, it may be helpful to bring the following:
- If you own a home and have a copy of your deed, please bring it with you. We will discuss options for preventing your home from ending up in probate!
- If you currently have estate planning documents not prepared by Mark Brynteson, please bring these with you!
- My fees are fixed — there are no surprises.
- For special needs or elder law services, please call our office to request a preliminary teleconference so we can make any accommodations for the disable person.
- If our current office availability does not match with your schedule, please contact us at bryntesonlaw.com. We have a limited number of weeknight and Saturday morning appointments available and would love to accommodate you.
- Attorney Brynteson will explain why you should have an attorney prepare your estate plan and what you need to know to hire a trust and will attorney.
At the Law Offices of Mark D. Brynteson, estate planning Attorney Brynteson uses his 35 years of legal experience to help you understand the different elements of an estate plan and determine which of them are most important for you. Attorney Brynteson is committed to serving people in Northern Illinois, including Belvidere, Rockford, Dekalb and Sycamore.
Your initial consultation for estate planning matters is complimentary! All other consults will be charged at the attorney’s hourly rate unless a flat rate probate package is applicable at the time of engagement. Please contact us if you have any questions!
Schedule below or call (708) 667-6868.