What Is Estate Planning?

You can save your loved ones a lot of money and frustration by devising a plan for the management of your health care and property in the event you become severely disabled or pass away. An Alabama attorney who does estate planning can help you with:

• Advance health care directives that give instructions on how you want your health care managed if you become incapacitated and unable to speak for yourself
• Powers of attorney that appoint someone to manage your property and sign legal papers for you if you become severely incapacitated
• Wills and probate that transfer your property to selected beneficiaries upon your death
• Trusts that provide for the care of minors or disabled persons, minimize taxes, or protect against creditors
• Strategies to avoid probate that transfer property at death-- insurance, gifts, joint ownership of property, bank accounts
• Medicaid eligibility planning

Advance Health Care Directives

Advance health care directives are written instructions that tell how you want your health care to be managed if you become so ill you can’t speak for yourself. Alabama law recognizes two types of advance directives:

• Living will: This indicates whether you want to receive life-sustaining treatment, like artificial respiration or feeding tubes, if you become terminally ill or permanently unconscious
• Health Care Durable Power of Attorney: This lets you select someone, a proxy, to make health care decisions for you if you’re unable to make those decisions yourself

You must be at least 19 years old to make an advance health care directive. To be legally valid, your health care directive must be:

• In writing
• Signed by you, or by another person under your direction and in your presence
• Dated
• Signed in the presence of two or more witnesses at least 19 years of age, who aren’t related to you, aren’t your designated health care proxy, aren’t financially responsible for your health care, and aren’t entitled to collect any portion of your estate after you die 

Powers Of Attorney

In Alabama, you can sign a durable power of attorney to appoint someone to handle your assets if you become incapacitated. At a minimum, a power of attorney should include the power to:

• Manage and transfer all assets
• Deal with the IRS
• Make gifts on your behalf
• Create and amend any trusts you set up

You don't need to transfer any assets at the time you sign a power of attorney, but it's a good idea to keep the person you've chosen informed about your ongoing financial matters.

Making A Will

In Alabama, you can make a valid will if you are at least 18 years old and of sound mind. The will must be in writing and signed by you or in your name by some other person in your presence by your direction. Your will must be signed by at least two people who witnessed either the signing or your acknowledgment of the signature.

In the will you can select a guardian for your minor children and designate a person, called an executor or personal representative, to manage the distribution of your property after your death. You can change your will by making a new will that replaces or revokes the old one or by making an addition to the will, called a codicil. Changes such as a marriage, divorce, birth or adoption of a child, or new property ownership should cause you to review your will and consider whether it should be changed to fit your new situation

Dying Without A Will

 If you die without a will (known as dying intestate) in Alabama, your assets are divided among the members of your immediate family. If you have no children or parents, your spouse gets all of your property. If you have no children but have parents, your spouse gets the first $100,000 plus one-half of the balance with the remainder going to your parents. If you have children that are also your spouse's children, your spouse gets the first $50,000 of your estate plus one-half of the balance with the remainder going to your children. If you have children but not all of them are also children of your spouse, your spouse gets one-half of your estate with the remainder going to your children.

Failing to have a will means your company or business probably can't continue to operate without court approval. And, your surviving spouse, or someone else, must be appointed the legal guardian of your minor children by a court and post a bond. These legal proceedings can be expensive. That's why it often makes economical sense to hire an attorney to draft a will to avoid these and other legal problems.

Related Resources on Lawyers.com^sm

- Contact an Estate Planning attorney in your area for specific advice, and read about Selecting a Good Estate Planning Lawyer
- Need a form? Access hundreds of Personal Legal Forms, including an Living Will, Power of Attorney and Last Will & Testament
- Read Trust Basics, Gloria Allred Wills & Estate Planning Tips and other Estate Planning articles and information
- Legal Dictionary
- Visit the Legal Forums for discussions on Estates, Wills & Probate topics