Columbus Estate Planning Lawyers

Columbus Estate Planning Services

Estate planning, by its very nature, deals with issues that are often difficult to discuss. They involve what happens to us after we pass on or if we become mentally or physically incapacitated. But the very difficulty of dealing with these subjects makes it all the more important to bring them up. It’s common for people to have strong feelings about what they want to happen with their assets after death. People often have strong beliefs on how they want their care, both medical and financial, handled in the event they can no longer care for themselves. Estate planning provides a wide array of legal tools that can take those wishes and express them in a legally binding form.  

Wills

Your last will and testament allow you to precisely define who should get your assets after death, and in what proportion. The will also serves to protect heirs from Ohio’s rigid intestacy laws, and it can make going through probate much smoother. Parents whose children are under the age of 18 can also use their will to make guardianship decisions. 

Trusts 

Trusts are the legal instruments that allow clients to transfer assets to their beneficiaries while avoiding probate court. There are several different structures you can use in setting up your trust, depending on how you want inheritances distributed—all at once or over a period of time—and how taxes and liability should be handled. Our clients can be confident that we’ll be sure all relevant issues are properly addressed during our consultation and dealt with in the ultimate structure of the trust. 

Probate Administration

Probate is the legal process by which a deceased person's estate is settled, and even smaller estates can become quite involved. The executor—the person entrusted with the task of getting the deceased’s affairs settled—must notify creditors, pay bills and debts, locate beneficiaries, and ultimately distribute the inheritance. KSR can take the burden of probate administration off of family members, who may already be going through the grieving process.