You know that you want to make an estate plan because you have heirs that you love, and you’re going to pass your assets on to them. In fact, you’re hoping to sit down and talk with your heirs about a lot of your assets so that you can all work together to create a plan that is approved by everyone.
However, you’re still about 10 years away from retiring. You’ve decided that you’re going to wait until you retire to make that plan. You have a few reasons, such as the fact that you’ll have a better idea of all of the assets that you own and that you’ll know what assets you need to keep to retire the way you want.
But, is it a good idea to wait to get your estate plans in order?
It is a risk to put off estate planning
It’s understandable that you want to wait until you’re retired to make your estate plan so you’ll have a better idea of how to set the plan up, but it’s also a risk.
If you pass away before you retire (or after you retire but before you’ve officially made the plan), then it’s not going to govern what happens with your assets. This means that the heirs who are supposed to get certain assets may not get what they expected, your estate could pay too much in unnecessary taxes and your family could run into a lot of other issues.
In light of this, it may be a better idea to make your estate plan now. When you retire, you can go back through and reassess everything. At that point, you can certainly update the plan or even make massive changes. But doing it this way ensures that you always have some plan in place and that your family isn’t left without.
Be sure you know exactly what steps you need to take to craft the right estate plan for your unique situation.