Fort Worth Estate Planning Attorney

Offering Practical Tools to Protect Yourself and Future Generations

The term “estate” might bring up images of mansions and yachts, but estates come in all sizes. You don’t have to be wealthy to benefit from estate planning tools, either. Your estate includes everything you own such as checking accounts, retirement accounts, homes, vehicles, and personal possessions—and they are all worth protecting through a comprehensive estate plan.

With the right estate plan built with the help of an attorney, you can designate who inherits your property after you’re gone, safeguard your assets, help your heirs avoid probate, appoint trusted individuals to manage your affairs, make medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated, and so much more.  in Fort Worth, Texas, is here to guide you through the entire process of making an estate plan. No matter the size of your estate, we can talk about which tools will meet your goals and how to get that plan into motion. You can also depend on us for other estate planning cases and concepts, such as guardianship and probate, so you’ll always have the legal guidance you need.

Call (817) 497-8148 or submit an online contact form to talk to a Fort Worth estate planning attorney today.

Creating a Trust to Start Your Estate Plan

A trust is a highly recommended estate planning tool for most people who want to create an estate plan. A living trust allows you to pass along assets without your heirs or beneficiaries having to go through probate. The assets are also generally protected from many creditor actions while they are kept in a trust. During the process of making a living trust, you must name someone who you want to oversee the distribution of your estate after you pass away death, and that person is charged to carry out the terms you created in the trust.

Trusts can be revocable or irrevocable, too. If a trust is irrevocable, it cannot be changed after it is created and finalized. On the other hand, changes can be made to the revocable trusts at any time in your life. Both revocable and irrevocable trusts have their advantages, so feel free to talk about either or both with your attorney.

Probate & Trust Administration

If you are a trustee (named in a trust) or an executor (named in a will), you have important obligations and time schedules that you must follow based on the expectations of the trust or will. Not doing so could land you in legal hot water, so you should prepare to handle these obligations with our help. Law Offices Of Mark M. Childress offers trust and probate administration services to ensure all aspects of your role are performed correctly and efficiently. 

The administration services we offer vary based on your case’s needs, such as:

• Filing the will in probate court.
• Identifying trust or will beneficiaries.
• Inventorying assets.
• Protecting property placed in a trust.
• Transferring property titles.
• Paying taxes owed by the estate or decedent.
• Settling debts.
• And much more.

Don’t let the complications of probate or trust administration get between you and your family, career, and other interests. Leave everything up to us.

Bring Your Guardianship Questions to Our Legal Team

An estate plan can include instructions for guardianship if the person making the estate plan has minor children or adult dependents. Our attorneys are here to answer all your questions about guardianship, so you can feel confident that your loved ones will be cared for in case you pass away or become incapacitated for any reason. We can also help you understand your obligations and expectations if you were named as the guardian of a loved one’s child or dependent adult.

Effective Estate Planning Can Bring Peace of Mind – Call Now

If you don’t have an estate plan – or need to change an existing plan – we can help and apply our decades of collective legal experience to your case. From providing strategic insight on the challenges that you can expect to helping make sense of the many legal documents that can come into play with even a small or straightforward estate plan, our goal is to meet your short-term and long-term goals. With the right estate planning tools, we can adjust your estate plan as your needs, assets, and relationships evolve, too, so you don’t feel like you are stuck once your estate plan is in place. Talk to our estate planning attorneys today and see what a bit of legal foresight can do for you and your family.

Schedule a no-cost consultation to learn more about estate planning with our Fort Worth attorneys.