Forms & Info
Be better prepared with these basic questionaires and forms.
Review the following checklists and forms for insight into how we practice, and if you proceed, to prepare for your initial meeting. For the most recent version of any checklist or document or a Word document, so you can input your information electronically, please email our office at [email protected].
Estate Planning and Probate Questionnaire
This is a comprehensive organizer you can complete before your initial consultation. It solicits information like a personal balance sheet, existing estate planning documents, health or other challenges, business and investment interests, and more. It will help us and any other advisers you choose to involve better understand your personal, financial, legal, and estate considerations. It will also facilitate an in-depth and holistic discussion of your goals, planning needs, and possible planning options. The balance sheet, for example, can help identify asset protection, estate planning, and other steps. For the probate of an estate this will solicit the information necessary to begin planning the probate and administration of an estate.
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Estate Document Drafting Questionnaire
This is a more targeted organizer you can complete before we begin drafting estate planning documents for you. It will help you make many of the personal decisions you must make for us to prepare foundational estate planning documents: pour-over will, revocable trust, financial power of attorney, health care proxy, HIPAA release, living will, etc. This includes who you will name as personal representative under your will, trustee, and successor trustees under a revocable trust, health care agent, and more. This questionnaire will also solicit information necessary for more sophisticated irrevocable trust and other planning: spousal lifetime access trust (SLAT), self-settled domestic asset protection trust (DAPT), charitable remainder trusts (CRT, CRAT, CRUT, NICRUT, NIMCRUT), charitable lead trust (CLAT, CLUT), special power of appointment trust (SPAT), etc.
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Irrevocable Trust/Transaction Checklist
For complex estate plans, transactions, and/or irrevocable trusts, collecting and organizing all documentation in a logical (by category and chronological) sequence can facilitate the proper administration of the plan, reduce professional fees, avoid the frustration of trying to figure out what was done or identify documents when needed for a lender, audit or other reason even decades into the future. This provides an explanation of how and why a compilation should be completed and provides a sample template of how to do so. While we may create one or more checklists for you, we will need copies of existing documents. This checklist will also illustrate the comprehensive approach we recommend to planning.
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Trust and Estate Planning Document Positions Checklist
This provides an alphabetical listing and plain English explanation of many of the dozens of positions that might appear in your estate planning documents. These range from obvious roles such as: executor, financial agent, health care agent, etc. It also lists and explains many of the positions in complex modern irrevocable trusts, such as substitutor, trust protector, loan director, investment advisor, charitable trustee, insurance trustee, powerholder, etc. Finally, it lists and explains many of the ancillary positions that may be relevant to your plan, such as care manager, long-term care insurance lapse designee, Social Security Representative Payee, funeral agent, etc.
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