Simplify Estate Planning

Estate Planning Attorney in Brighton, Michigan

Estate planning can look deceptively simple when it is reduced to signing a will or trust. The harder questions are often practical ones. Does the trust actually own the house it was intended to protect? Who can pay the bills if a parent becomes incapacitated? Who will make medical decisions? Who would care for minor children? And does an estate plan created years ago still reflect the family and property someone has today?

Simplify Estate Planning focuses specifically on helping clients put those arrangements in place. Based in Brighton, the practice is led by Michigan attorney Gregory M. Barbee and offers will-based and trust-based estate plans, individual estate-planning documents, trust funding assistance, real-estate deeds and reviews of existing estate plans.

Creating a Trust Is Only the Beginning

A family can spend time and money creating a trust and still discover later that an important asset was never properly incorporated into the plan.

Simplify places particular emphasis on trust funding. After a trust is established, ownership and beneficiary arrangements for appropriate assets need to be coordinated with it. Otherwise, the trust document may exist while some of the property it was supposed to control remains outside it.

This can become especially important with a home. Simplify handles deeds associated with its trust estate plans rather than treating the signing of the trust as the end of the process.

The firm also works with clients' financial professionals when accounts or beneficiary arrangements need attention.

For families hoping to use a trust to keep assets outside probate, this follow-through matters. An asset that was never properly connected to the trust may not receive the treatment the family expected simply because a trust document was signed.

What Happens to the House?

For many Michigan families, a house is one of the largest assets in the estate. That makes the way real estate is titled an important part of planning.

Simplify prepares and records deeds as part of its trust-planning services when appropriate. The firm also offers enhanced life estate deeds, commonly called Lady Bird deeds.

A Lady Bird deed can allow an owner to retain control of property during life while establishing how the property will transfer at death. This can provide an alternative method of transferring real estate outside the probate process in appropriate circumstances.

The important issue is coordination. A will, trust, deed and beneficiary arrangements should not be treated as unrelated pieces of paperwork when they may affect how the same estate ultimately passes to family members.

Simplify's estate-planning process addresses real-estate transfers as part of the larger plan rather than assuming the estate documents alone have completed the job.

If Your Children Need to Handle Your Finances

Estate planning also needs to address what happens while someone is alive.

An illness, injury or loss of capacity may make it impossible for a person to continue managing everyday financial responsibilities. Bills still need to be paid. Bank accounts may need attention. Taxes, insurance, investments and property matters do not stop because someone is unable to handle them personally.

Simplify prepares financial powers of attorney that allow clients to designate someone to act on their behalf.

Depending on the authority granted, that person may be able to handle matters involving bills, deposits and withdrawals, property, insurance, taxes, investments and government benefits.

Without appropriate advance authorization, a family may discover that being someone's spouse, son or daughter does not automatically provide the legal authority needed to manage that person's affairs.

In some circumstances, the alternative can involve going to court for a guardianship or conservatorship. Establishing authority beforehand can help families avoid reaching a crisis with no one legally empowered to act.

Who Will Make Medical Decisions If You Can't?

Financial authority is only one part of incapacity planning.

Simplify also prepares healthcare powers of attorney so clients can designate a healthcare advocate to make medical decisions if they are unable to communicate or make those decisions themselves.

This gives the client an opportunity to choose that person in advance rather than leaving relatives to confront the issue for the first time during a medical emergency.

Healthcare planning can also document wishes concerning medical and end-of-life decisions.

For families, these documents can provide more than legal authority. They can give the person chosen to act clearer guidance about what their loved one actually wanted.

Parents Need to Plan for More Than Property

Parents with minor children have an estate-planning issue that has nothing to do with the value of their estate.

Who should raise the children if neither parent is able to do so?

Simplify addresses guardian nominations through will planning. This allows parents to formally document whom they want considered for that responsibility rather than leaving their preferences unstated.

A will can also address the disposition of property after death and identify the person responsible for handling the estate.

For families whose circumstances do not require a trust-based plan, Simplify offers a will estate plan incorporating the documents needed to address both death and potential incapacity.

Will-Based or Trust-Based Planning?

Simplify offers both will estate plans and trust estate plans rather than presenting one structure as appropriate for everyone.

A will can establish how probate property should be distributed and address matters such as the nomination of a guardian for minor children. However, property controlled by a will generally remains subject to the probate process.

A properly established and funded trust can provide a different mechanism for holding and ultimately distributing assets.

Whether a trust makes sense depends on the client's circumstances and objectives. The distinction is particularly important for someone whose primary reason for considering a trust is probate avoidance. Creating the document without properly coordinating the relevant assets with it can leave the plan incomplete.

Simplify's trust-planning process therefore includes attention to funding rather than stopping with preparation of the trust itself.

An Estate Plan Can Become Outdated

A good estate plan at age 40 may not necessarily remain the right estate plan at 55 or 70.

Families change. People marry. Financial circumstances change. Property is acquired or sold. The people originally chosen to handle financial or healthcare decisions may no longer be the people someone would choose today.

Simplify offers reviews of existing estate-planning documents to determine whether an older plan still reflects the client's circumstances and intentions.

Not every change requires starting over. The firm handles trust amendments and will codicils when changes to existing documents are appropriate.

Reviewing an older plan can also reveal practical problems beyond outdated instructions. A trust may have been created years earlier without all intended assets being properly coordinated with it, or changes in property ownership may have occurred since the original plan was prepared.

The relevant question is therefore not simply whether someone has estate-planning documents. It is whether those documents still accomplish what that person wants them to accomplish today.

Individual Documents for More Focused Needs

Not everyone who needs estate-planning assistance needs an entirely new estate plan.

Simplify offers individual estate documents in addition to its packaged will and trust plans. That allows clients with a more focused need to address a particular document rather than necessarily replacing an existing plan.

The firm's services include wills, trusts, financial powers of attorney, healthcare powers of attorney, Lady Bird deeds and amendments to existing estate-planning documents.

This can be useful when a client's basic plan remains appropriate but one part needs attention—for example, when an existing trust needs to be amended or a particular real-estate transfer needs to be incorporated into the plan.

A Brighton Practice Focused on Estate Planning

Simplify Estate Planning is located on Grand River Avenue in Brighton. Gregory M. Barbee leads its estate-planning team and has practiced law in Michigan since graduating from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in 2007.

Unlike a general-practice law office in which estate planning is one of many unrelated services, Simplify is specifically structured around estate planning.

Its work is concentrated on helping clients establish and maintain plans for their property, incapacity and family responsibilities. That includes deciding between will- and trust-based planning, properly funding trusts, coordinating real estate with an estate plan, establishing financial and healthcare decision-making authority, and reviewing plans that may no longer reflect a client's life.

Practice Areas

• Estate Planning

• Wills

• Revocable Trusts

• Trust-Based Estate Plans

• Will-Based Estate Plans

• Trust Funding

• Financial Powers of Attorney

• Healthcare Powers of Attorney

• Healthcare Advocate Designations

• Lady Bird Deeds

• Real-Estate Deeds for Estate Planning

• Guardian Nominations for Minor Children

• Estate-Plan Reviews

• Trust Amendments

• Will Codicils