What is Estate Planning and Why is it Important?
Estate planning is the process of organizing how your assets and affairs will be handled during your life and after your death. An estate plan is a roadmap for what happens to your money, property, and possessions after you die, while also addressing important healthcare and family matters.
The main goals of estate planning include:
Distributing your Assets
Deciding who gets what after you die, whether that's family members, friends, charities, or other beneficiaries.
Minimizing Taxes and Expenses
Structuring things to reduce estate taxes, probate costs, and other fees that might otherwise eat into what you leave behind.
Planning for Incapacity
Setting up documents that specify who makes financial and medical decisions for you if you become unable to do so yourself.
Protecting Beneficiaries
This might include establishing trusts for minor children, addressing special needs, or protecting assets from creditors or poor financial decisions.
Common Estate Planning Documents
Common estate planning documents include wills, trusts, financial and healthcare powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations on accounts such as retirement plans and life insurance.
While people often associate estate planning with the wealthy or elderly, it's actually relevant for most adults.
Even younger people with modest assets benefit from having basic documents in place, especially if they have children, own property, or have specific wishes about their medical care.
Your Estate Planning Journey
Estate planning can feel overwhelming—facing mortality, making decisions about your assets, and shaping your legacy is heavy work. Our role is to lift that weight, guiding you through a clear, organized process that protects the people you love.
This is more than paperwork. It's a plan that protects you throughout your lifetime and honors your wishes when you're gone. And as your life changes—marriage, children, loss, career shifts—we're here, part of your support network, making sure your estate plan evolves with you.
How We Work Together
We begin by getting to know you. You'll schedule an initial meeting and complete a questionnaire with your personal and financial information—nothing complicated, just the foundation we need to understand your unique situation.
This is where we listen. We'll discuss your goals, your concerns, and the planning options available to achieve what matters most to you.
We draft your essential estate planning documents—Wills, Trusts, Durable Powers of Attorney, Health Care Proxies, HIPAA Medical Releases, and Advance Directives. You'll receive everything with a summary letter written in plain English. No IRS jargon. Just a clear explanation of what your plan is and how it works.
If your circumstances call for more sophisticated strategies, we can incorporate Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts, Irrevocable Gifting Trusts, Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts, Qualified Personal Residence Trusts, Realty Trusts, Limited Liability Companies, and other specialized planning tools.
We meet again to walk through your documents together. If anything needs adjusting, we revise the drafts until everything feels right.
At your signing meeting, we finalize your documents and provide clear instructions for updating beneficiary designations and retitling assets—ensuring your plan is not just thoughtful, but fully in place.
Start Your Estate Plan Today
If you are a resident of the state of Massachusetts and would like Fides Law to handle your trust and estate needs, please call our main office at (617) 693-1711 or email info@fideslaw.com
