Jeff Fouts: “Estate planning attorney, Jeff Fouts, here. I’ve said in the past that about 65 percent of all people die without an estate plan, and one-third of the people die with some form of estate plan that oftentimes isn’t sufficient to take care of their needs. Why is that?
There’s two main reasons. One main reason is procrastination. You’ve heard the old saying, ‘Never put off till tomorrow, what you can put off the day after tomorrow.’ Procrastination.
The second reason is indecisiveness. Some people say, ‘Jeff, I’m just not sure whether I want to select my son to serve first on the financial power of attorney or whether to select my daughter to serve first on the medical power of attorney to make medical decisions. Hmmm… My daughter is an RN, but my son knows more about finance. I’m not sure what to do. I don’t like my daughter’s husband. Also, my son lives in state, and my daughter lives out of state. I’m just not sure. Do I want to have my son and daughter serve as joint fiduciaries or what?’
Some people say, ‘Jeff, until I know exactly what I’m going to do, until I can put it all down in a spreadsheet, I’m not going to take any action whatsoever to create or update my estate plan.’ That’s a real problem. That’s a recipe for disaster.
If you’re waiting till you know every single answer before you begin the process of even beginning your estate plan, the odds are very high that it will be a long time coming until you do your estate planning. If at all. That’s why we, at our law firm, try to make it easy for people to take a baby step at a time in the process.
The first meeting we have for people is called a “Vision Meeting.” What that means is we’re trying to get the overarching picture. We’re not trying to answer all the questions because we know that you don’t even know all the questions, much less all the answers. We take it a step at a time.
Anyway, if we could ever help you, just give us a call. Thank you.”
