Estate Planning Mistakes

By Moneysmartz on Fri, February 9, 2007, 3:50 PM | Link

Archived Under: Estate Planning , Moneysmartz Editor , The Moneysherpa Pages
Tags: Estate Planning, Moneysmartz Editor, The Moneysherpa Pages

Providing for your family through estate planning can be very a complicated and confusing process, even for financial professionals. Michael T. Ohlman, columnist for the Bradenton Herald, compiled the following list of estate planning mistakes to watch out for:

Not funding your living trust.

Too much JTWROS property.

Leaving too many assets to a surviving spouse.

Not equalizing assets through gifts between spouses.

Not having a will.

Improper ownership of life insurance.

Being donor and custodian of a uniform-gift-to-minors-act/uniform-transfer-to-minors-act account.

Not knowing where all the "stuff" is.

Naming the wrong executor.

Not periodically updating an estate plan.

This list should be a helpful reference as you fine-tune your estate plan or work with estate planning experts to create your estate plan for the first time.