When a person dies, a lack of estate planning can increase the burden on their loved ones. Even with good planning and no legal disputes, estate administration can be a large burden for your family to bear. Between tax planning, asset allocation (especially for blended families), trust declarations, and other common estate issues can cause headaches and require professional assistance.  Regardless of the complexity of your estate, a will or any other estate planning document simplifies the process and helps take some of the burden off of your loved ones in the event of your passing. 
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At KSW Lawyers, our experience includes preparing estate plans for those who are single, have one spouse with no prior spouses, and those who are in second or more than second marriages or common law relationships. We can assist with planning for simple assets to complex and substantial assets and the nature and extent of assets also affects the planning direction.We can assist you in drafting a will or will alternative that gives you peace of mind and helps everything unfold the way you want it to.

Our team can assist you with the following areas to reduce the strain of your loved ones in the event of your passing:

• Preparation of wills and related documents
• Preparation of joint ownerships and associated trust declarations that avoids challenges when done correctly.
• Preparation of alter ego and joint  partner trusts that are will substitute trusts and cannot be challenged or varied.
• Other general probate and wills variation avoidance planning including the minimization of Wills Variation Act concerns
• Trusts for various purposes, including probate avoidance, disability planning, asset protection, tax planning or controlled distribution of funds to beneficiaries
• Trust planning for efficient management and distribution of assets after death
• Advising on executor appointments, including the use of professionals and trust companies as executors
• Advising trustees as to their duties
• Planning for a wide range of situations, from basic personal situations to situations with more complicated assets and/or business interests
• Marriage and cohabitation agreements, generally involving wills in “blended family” situations to assist in certainty with regard to estate planning generally
• Drafting power of attorney documents and understanding the associated implications for general, specific, and enduring power of attorney arrangements.

Assigning someone as your power of attorney entrusts them with the responsibility of ensuring that your wishes are respected, even if you cannot make decisions for yourself. Your power of attorney can act on your behalf for legal and financial matters, and entrusting that power to someone can be a complicated process. 

Our team strives to make the power of attorney process as straightforward as possible, and can help you select the correct agreement, modify and existing one, or change your designated power of attorney, provided you are mentally capable. 

We know that many people never do wills and encourage everyone of any station in life to do a will and reach out to discuss all of your estate planning options.