You have worked hard your whole life, learning the value of a dollar and a day’s work from a young age. Perhaps you started your own neighborhood lawn care business in your teenage years, worked as a lifeguard at the city pool, or bagged groceries at a local store, setting about to secure your position in the world. Later on, you received a college education and pursued a career, putting in the work, day by day, week by week, month by month. 

That, as you know so very well, is the way most Americans support themselves, provide for their families, and save for the future. After many years of labor, you deserve an enjoyable retirement, as well as the opportunity to contemplate a meaningful distribution of your assets when the time comes. 

In addition to bequeathing financial assets, personal property, and real property to loved ones, you may wish to benefit a favorite charitable institution. Charitable causes are many – secular, religious, healthcare-related, devoted to the stewardship of our planet, working in the interest of socioeconomic equality, and so much more. If one or more charities are of great personal importance to you, the question, then, is how to ensure that they will indeed benefit from the resources you intend for them to receive. The answer to this question is estate planning.

Thinking about your plans for the assets in your estate should be a source of happiness – a reward for the hard work you’ve done and a testament to the family, friends, and other loved ones that fill your life with meaning. Strangely, even counter-intuitively, we all too often shy away from the subject of estate planning instead of embracing it and discovering the sense of security and happiness it can bring.  

Estate planning, when done properly, is something to be excited about. A legally valid will or trust is a means of ensuring that your assets and other resources flow to the individuals and institutions you wish to benefit when the time comes. Such legal instruments, then, are powerfully good things. 

At the same time, importantly, in the absence of a legally valid will or trust, the rules of intestate succession – the law’s “default rules” – will apply when it is time for the assets of your estate to be distributed. In this scenario, your estate may flow to family, relatives, or even the state – a distribution outcome that might be displeasing, to say the least, depending on both the relationships you value and the ones that you do not. As such, it is imperative that you take estate planning seriously and utilize the legal instruments necessary to ensure that the right people and organizations receive everything that you intend for them to receive.