Do I Need to Leave My Assets to My Children Equally?
Are you beginning to think about estate planning in Gwinnett County? If so, you are likely beginning to consider who will inherit specific assets and how you want your property to be distributed to your loved ones upon your death. While estate planning involves much more than just deciding who will inherit your property — it also involves making crucial decisions about health care, guardianships, and other financial matters — inheritances are often at the front of a person’s mind when they are starting to consider estate planning options. If you have more than one child, you may be unsure about how to leave assets to your kids and whether they must all inherit equally from your estate.
In short, you can leave your property to just about any individual or entity and in any amount or percentage of your choosing. Our Gwinnett County estate planning lawyers can explain in more detail.
You Decide How Your Assets Will Be Distributed
When you make an estate plan that includes (as it should) documents and tools to ensure that your assets are distributed to beneficiaries according to your wishes, you get to decide entirely how assets will be distributed. To be clear, you can leave all of your assets to your children in equal measure, or you can leave none of your assets to your kids, or anything in between.
Assets also do not have to be left to family members. You can leave property to friends, neighbors, or any other individual of your choosing. You can also leave assets to entities, such as charities that you have supported in your lifetime.
The ways in which your assets will be distributed will depend on the specific type of estate planning documents and tools you create. While most people assume that they will be leaving assets through a will, there are many other ways to leave assets that can also allow their beneficiaries to avoid the complex probate process. You can leave assets through different types of trusts, by naming beneficiaries on pensions or insurance policies, and through payable-on-death beneficiary designations for bank accounts.
Laws of Intestate Succession Will Not Apply If You Have an Estate Plan
Some people mistakenly believe that they must leave assets equally to children, or that they must leave all of their assets to a surviving spouse. The only time this type of distribution must happen is when a person dies without a will — known as dying intestate — and there are no other ways for the assets to be distributed (such as through a trust or a beneficiary designation). In this situation, the assets are distributed according to Georgia’s intestate succession laws.
In these laws, state lawmakers have decided that if a person dies with a spouse and no surviving children, the spouse will inherit everything. If a person dies with a surviving child or children but no surviving spouse, the children inherit everything equally. If a person dies with a surviving spouse and children, the parties share the inheritance equally with the spouse receiving at least one-third of the estate.
Contact a Norcross Estate Planning Attorney
Are you ready to get started on estate planning? An experienced Norcross estate planning lawyer at Bowman Law Firm can begin working with you today. Contact us to learn more.
Source:
law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-53/
