Legal Aid May Be Able to Help with Estate Planning and Administration

By Tonya Sams

We all hope to live long, healthy lives, but it is also important to plan ahead to protect our assets. This means ensuring that loved ones will reap the benefits of our hard work and efforts in this life. This can be made possible through estate planning.

The first thing that people should be aware of is that there is a difference between estate planning and administration.

“Estate planning means putting plans in place so that when someone dies, things go the way they want them to go. Their belongings will go to the people that they want to have them and they’re able to put somebody in charge of who’s going to handle the estate,” said Helen Rapp, a Staff Attorney in the Economic Justice Group at The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.

Estate administration happens as the result of somebody dying with probate assets. This is when the family of the deceased wants those assets distributed, so they open a case in probate court.

“If you do really good estate planning, probate court and estate administration can often be avoided,” said Helen. “Probate court is a time-consuming process. There are fees associated with it and because it’s filed in court, everything becomes public record.”

When starting an estate plan, the person should establish a last will and testament. The last will and testament declares who the executor will be. The executor is the person who will oversee the estate after the person dies. The executor has a number of duties including paying for the funeral, paying debts and distributing the assets of the estate in the way that the deceased person requested in their will.

The estate plan also names the beneficiaries, or those who will eventually receive the person’s assets.

“Any asset you have that has a beneficiary on it is not a probate asset – it will not be required to go through probate court,” Helen said. “An example of this is life insurance and retirement accounts. These accounts are transferred to the beneficiary upon death. You can name a beneficiary on just about everything. If it involves your home, you can do a Transfer on Death Designation Affidavit (TODDA), which allows you to name a beneficiary on real estate.”

In addition to making sure your wishes are followed, an estate plan should include Power of Attorney (POA) documents that let you appoint agents to act on your behalf while you are living. These agents can make decisions for you anytime you cannot make them for yourself. This includes a financial POA and a healthcare POA. An estate plan should also include a living will which documents your thoughts about end-of-life matters.

For Legal Aid’s estate planning brochure, go to: lasclev.org/EstatePlanning.

Need help with estate planning? Legal Aid may be able to help! To apply for free legal services, call 888-817-3777 or apply online: lasclev.org/apply.

Story published in:
The Lakewood Observer - Legal Aid May Be Able to Help with Estate Planning and Administration
The Plain Press - Legal Aid may be able to help with estate planning and administration
The Euclid Observer - Legal Aid may be able to help with estate planning and administration