Hartford elder law attorneys help you to make plans to protect your family, no matter what happens in your future. While elder law attorneys often help seniors, as this demographic is typically the most concerned about planning for illness and end of life issues, it is not only older people who need advice from an elder law lawyer. There is always a risk something could happen to you and you need to have concrete, detailed plans in place in case the worst occurs. This can be especially important if you are the family breadwinner. 
If you are the family breadwinner and you have people counting on you, there are a number of steps you may need to take to protect your dependents, from purchasing life insurance to making sure you have provided instructions for what happens in case of incapacity.
One of the key tools that you may wish to use if you are the family breadwinner is a living trust. Hartford elder law attorneys at Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates can help you to determine if the creation of a living trust is the best choice for you and can assist you with the formal process of creating a legally valid trust document. Just give us a call today to find out more.
Why Family Breadwinners Need a Living Trust
If you are the breadwinner for your family, the loss of your income if something happens to you could be devastating to the people who are counting on you. You should take steps to make sure that your family is able to be provided for after you pass on. This usually takes the form of purchasing a life insurance policy and of providing an inheritance to your dependents.
Unfortunately, a life insurance policy can take time to pay out and your family may need money right away once they no longer are able to count on your income coming in. This is a key reason why a living trust is so important. It allows for assets to be transferred during the trust administration process instead of via the probate process.
As Investopedia explains, the probate process which is typically necessary after a death has occurred, can take around a one year period of time to complete. If you have made plans for assets to transfer via a last will and testament, those assets typically must be transferred through the probate process. This can leave your family members waiting months and months for probate to be completed and their inheritance to be transferred to them for their use. During this waiting period, they could experience significant financial hardship if the inheritance that you left behind was supposed to be there to provide for them.
A living trust allows for assets to be transferred outside of the probate process, so the assets can move to new owners in a much more timely manner. A trust administrator, who you select when you create the trust document, is in charge of overseeing the trust administration process and making sure that assets are managed during this process and transferred in the most timely manner possible to heirs or beneficiaries.
Because no court is involved unless there is a problem, and because the trust administration process is much more streamlined than the probate process, your loved ones who are counting on your income can inherit much more quickly and the inheritance can provide the financial support for your family that you were hoping it would once you are no longer there to be a provider.
Getting Help from Hartford Elder law Attorneys
Hartford elder law attorneys will assist you in determining if a living trust is the best way to protect your family and assets if you are the breadwinner of your family. We can also work with you to put a comprehensive estate plan in place to ensure your dependents are cared for even if something should happen to you.
To find out more about the ways in which our legal team can assist you with providing for your family no matter what happens to your health, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at 860-548-1000 or contact us online to begin the process of identifying the tools you need to use to protect your loved ones. You never know when something could happen to you, so don’t leave your family unprotected- give us a call now.
Mr. Nirenstein is licensed to practice before the courts of the State of Connecticut and the United States District Court. He is a member of the Connecticut and Hartford County Bar Associations, and the Estate and Probate, Elder Law, Business Law and Real Estate Sections of the Connecticut Bar Association.
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