st charles estate planning lawyer

A trust is a legal instrument that allows a trustee to hold legal title to someone else’s property—who identified as the beneficiary. You can even be the trustee of your own trust, which allows you complete control over all the property held in that trust. A living trust (an inter vivos trust) refers to a …

What Won’t Be Protected in Your Missouri Will When you’ve spent your entire life working, there comes a point where you start to contemplate who you will leave the products of your hard earned work to. Naturally, you start looking into drafting a will that will detail who you want to leave your most prized …

Allowing your assets to go into probate is both arduous and expensive. For this reason, probate should be avoided at all costs. Missouri law allows for a myriad of ways to avoid probate, which include the living trust, Payable-on-death designation for bank accounts, beneficiary deeds and joint ownership. It will behoove you to inform yourself …

Many things can happen to your estate after your death. To ensure that your survivors honor your wishes, hire an attorney to draft a will that is both clear in its terms and legally binding upon your heirs. Without a will, default legal rules of intestacy (dying without a will) take effect, and people whom …

When you can no longer make your own decisions, many different legal tools can help carry out your wishes. A power of attorney is a legal document that authorizes another person to make decisions on your behalf. It can ensure that other people make financial decisions, health care decisions, and living arrangements in accordance with …

When deciding what to include in an estate plan, consider the nature of your assets and property, who your beneficiaries will be, and any relevant tax implications. One thing many people neglect to consider is the opportunity to set up charitable gifts as part of their estate plans. Charitable giving can have many benefits for …

While no adult is ever too young to draft a last will and testament, many people decide to do so when they have minor children they want to protect. There are different issues to consider when you are writing your will with your minor children in mind, and the following are only some examples of …

As part of a comprehensive estate plan, many people opt to form a trust to which they transfer ownership of their property and assets. However, there are many types of trusts you can form under Missouri trust laws, and the type of trust that is right for you will depend on many factors. Such factors …

When you form a living trust, you will be able to serve as the trustee and manage your property and assets in the trust. However, once you pass away, someone else will need to take over these duties in accordance with your instructions. When you are choosing someone to act as your successor trustee, you …

In Part 1 of this article, we discussed three important estate planning tools: wills, trusts, and joint tenancy and beneficiary deeds. In this section, we will examine three additional tools that can be used to design a comprehensive and effective estate plan that protects your best interests. Durable Power of Attorney While wills and trusts …