Estate Planning Part1: Foundational Concepts

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Estate Planning Part 1
Foundational Concepts
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  Your Estate What is an estate? When lawyers
talk about estates, theyre not referring to
large pieces of property or homes. The term
estate refers to all the property, debts, and
other legal issues you leave behind after you
die, or after you become incapacitated.
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Planning What his estate planning? Everyone
will leave behind an estate, and everyone has the
ability to exert control over various aspects of
what happens to that estate. Estate planning is
the process by which you evaluate your options
and make decisions that will later affect your
estate.
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Planning Choices What types of choices do I
get to make? There are many. You can make estate
planning choices about the types of inheritances
you want to leave, the people you want to
represent your estate in court, the people you
want to make decisions on your behalf if you
become incapacitated, and more.
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Estate Planning Tools How I make these
choices? By creating various estate planning
tools. Each of the tools you create will address
specific estate planning topics. We will discuss
the types of tools you can make in more detail in
our next presentation, but for now, you should
understand that your estate plan will involve
multiple elements.