Preparing for the Future ∙ Helping Your Family

Preparing a solid estate plan is a tremendous service to your family. A thorough and clear estate plan communicates your wishes to your family in advance regarding your finances and medical care. This will help your family avoid unnecessary conflicts and potential estate or probate litigation during an already difficult time.

At Anderson and Associates, P.C., we help Indiana clients prepare all of their relevant estate planning documents. As Indianapolis estate planning attorneys with more than 30 years of legal experience, we can help you draft a plan to make sure your wishes are communicated effectively and clearly to your family.

Estate Planning Documents

We can help you draft all of the necessary documents for a complete and integrated estate plan:

• Wills: The will is the main estate planning document that passes on wealth and assets to loved ones.
• Trusts: The trust is a wealth transfer document that can help avoid some of the tax consequences of simply passing on wealth directly. It can also afford you a greater degree of control over how and when the assets are distributed and how they are to be used.
• Durable powers of attorney: A durable power of attorney (POA) establishes an agent to take over your financial affairs if you are unable to handle them yourself. You can use a POA to establish the attorney in fact and to instruct that person as to how you want your finances to be handled.
• Advance health care directives (living wills): The advance health care directive is like a POA for health matters instead of financial matters. It allows you to name a health care agent and to leave instructions as to how you want your health care to be handled if you are ever unable to communicate your wishes on your own.
• Guardianships: A guardianship is a document that passes decision-making authority and responsibility to someone else. A common guardianship scenario involves passing on child-rearing responsibility to family members to make sure children are cared for in the event of their parents’ untimely death.

We can help you with all aspects of your estate plan to help you avoid disputes and probate litigation. Unlike most estate lawyers, we emphasize litigation as an essential part of our practice. If you are already facing estate or probate litigation, we can help defend your rights in court.