An effective estate plan should have coverage over the management of your estate during your lifetime and when you fall into incapacity or a terminal disease; it should also cover your asset management and consequent disposal after your demise. In that regard, there are vital estate planning documents which you must establish to address each of your desires. These documents attract monetary cost, and how complex your estate is will definitely affect the cost of establishing these documents.

Miami estate planning attorney

As there are legal requirements for making a will valid, as well as several complicated factors to consider such as estate tax and probate, it is recommended you seek the professional assistance of a Miami estate planning attorney. This also raises the cost of your estate planning but it is worth every dime.

What is the cost of hiring an estate planning attorney Miami?

There is no straight answer to this question because your estate planning attorney will charge you based on the extent of the legal services which you demand. It is possible that all you need in your estate plan (for a small sized one) is a will. If you demand only consultancy from your lawyer, or you want them to help you draft the will, then the cost will be far less than hiring the attorney for a full scale estate planning involving several estate planning documents.

Estate planning Attorney Miami cost for drafting a will

Depending on the complexity of your estate, your will may require basic or intensive planning. For small simple estates, you could simply draft your will yourself without the assistance of an attorney. There are Miami will templates on the Internet which you can buy for as little as $10. These templates conform with Miami state laws and all you need do is state your wishes and make necessary signatures.

However, you may require the professional assistance of an estate planning attorney when you have valuable complex assets, or you wish to simplify probate. Depending on the nature of your estate, an estate planning attorney in Miami may charge between $300 and $650 for drafting a Miami Will.

Know what you want

Not all estates can do well with a will alone. What makes your estate plan effective is how much coverage it has for everything that borders on your fiscal and personal affairs and well-being. To this end, you would need the estate planning attorney to create various estate planning documents, and all these would affect the total cost charged by the attorney. You may need to ask yourself questions like:

• Do I want all my assets to go to one person or a number of loved ones when I die?
• Do I wish to avoid the expensive and lengthy probate process so my loved ones can inherit quickly?
• Is my estate beyond the Federal estate tax exemption of $11.58 million, and do I need my attorney to help me avoid or minimize estate tax?
• Do I have minors or children with special needs?
• Should I leave assets to my children, so they can continue to enjoy the life they are used to?
• Should I leave my entire estate to my spouse?
• Do I need to take any measures to avoid guardianship proceedings?
• What kind of medical attention would I want in my last days?

The answers to these questions will determine what estate planning documents you need, and hence the cost charged by your attorney.

If your estate exceeds $75,000 and you wish to avoid or simplify probate, an estate planning attorney can help you do this by creating a living trust alongside your will. You continue to use assets held in your trust until death, after which they pass to your beneficiary outside probate. Howbeit, not all assets can and should go into a living trust. But by reason of the trust holding some assets, the value of assets addressed in your will becomes less, and so will cause the probate to be simpler and shorter.

Living trusts are more expensive and difficult to establish than wills.

A living trust also helps avoid guardianship since your trustee will immediately take over your affairs during incapacity. Otherwise, you should create powers of attorney to appoint persons to make medical and financial decisions on your behalf.

If you have children with special needs, you can leave assets for them in a “special needs trust”. Child trust should be created for children below 18.

With a living will, you can decide how you desire to be treated during end-of-life situations. For example, you can lay down instructions not to be put on life support. If your estate is above the exemption limit, then you would need your attorney to incorporate tax planning into your estate plan in order to avoid the huge taxes.

Estate planning attorney cost Miami

All the above documents discussed will require some costs to establish. For all of that, an estate planning attorney in Miami may charge between $1,500 and $3,000.