Rod of Iron Trusts & Estates Counsel

Estate Planning Attorney in San Francisco

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It is vital for anyone with obligations to a spouse, children, employees, or pets, covering contingencies from who will care for your pet during a hospital stay to who is authorized and prepared to manage your financial obligations if you’re unable to do so. Estate planning is particularly crucial for blended families, ensuring that your wishes are honored and your assets are distributed according to your intentions, no matter the size of your estate.

Why An Estate Plan is Essential

An estate plan is essential for several reasons, regardless of your age, wealth, or marital status. It involves creating a set of legal documents that guide how you want your assets and affairs handled during your life and after your death. Here are the key reasons why you need an estate plan:

• Asset Distribution: Without an estate plan, state laws will determine how your assets are distributed upon your death, which may not align with your wishes. An estate plan ensures your assets go to the people or organizations you choose.
• Protecting Beneficiaries: Estate planning allows you to protect the interests of your beneficiaries, whether they are minors needing a guardian or adults who might not be financially savvy. It also helps in providing for any special needs your beneficiaries may have without disrupting their ability to receive government benefits.
• Avoiding Probate: Probate can be a long, public, and costly legal process that can diminish the value of your estate and delay distribution to your heirs. Many estate planning tools, like trusts, can help avoid probate, making the transition smoother and quicker for your heirs.
• Reducing Estate Taxes: A well-crafted estate plan can help minimize taxes and other expenses, maximizing the value of the estate that passes to your heirs.
• Incapacity Planning: Estate planning also includes making provisions for your own care and financial affairs if you become incapacitated. Through powers of attorney and health care directives, you can appoint someone you trust to make financial and medical decisions on your behalf.
• Business Succession: If you own a business, estate planning can ensure smooth succession and continuity of operations, preventing potential disputes and financial loss.
• Family Disputes: By clearly outlining your wishes, an estate plan can help avoid conflicts among family members, ensuring your wishes are respected and reducing the potential for disputes.
• Charitable Giving: Estate planning allows you to make significant charitable gifts, potentially reducing your taxable estate while supporting causes important to you.

Creating an estate plan is a proactive step towards protecting yourself, your assets, and your loved ones. It provides peace of mind, knowing that you have prepared for the future and your wishes will be honored.

Our Estate Planning Process

ROI’s process is a comprehensive, highly personalized approach to your estate planning needs that considers multiple dimensions and usually requires coordination with your existing financial, real estate, and tax professionals.

1. First Contact

After you schedule your first contact (a 15-min complimentary phone or video conference) we will invite you to complete a brief online questionnaire. Your responses help us understanding you high-level goals, main concerns, and areas for exploration. After this strategy session has concluded, and if there is mutual agreement, we will proceed to the next step: You will receive an engagement letter along with a legal services agreement with an advance fee arrangement. The advance fee will be discussed during the initial meeting and will go into a lawyer trust account (IOLTA). By law, unearned fees must be promptly returned to you, and for simple estate planning needs a refund is likely.

2. Design Meeting

During the Design Meeting we will review reasonable alternative approaches that can accomplish your estate planning needs and qoute you the associated flat fees. You will then decide how to proceed. In the unusual case that you paid an advance fee, we held a Design Meeting, but you do not want to proceed further, we will charge you an hourly rate of $300 for the time spend with you and refund the balance of the retainer fee.

3. Drafting Meeting

Prior to the Drafting Meeting we will contact your financial, real estate, tax, and spiritual advisors, of course with your permission, if needed. We will then draft the documents for your estate plan and send them to you in advance of the Drafting Meeting. This gives you a chance to review them if you’d like, but the detailed point-by-point review will occur during the Drafting Meeting. We will discuss any revisions you would like to make and after the meeting prepare the revised documents. This meeting does not necessarily have to be in person and can be done by videoconference (Zoom).

4. Signing Meeting

The Signing Meeting generally requires the presence of witnesses. Our attorney is a Notary Public and as such this signing meeting can occur at your residence, a mutually agreeable location, or at the attorney’s home office.

5. Biennial Monitoring

We will reach out to you at least once every other year with a very brief questionnaire which will determine if any modifications are recommended. Note: All reviews are complimentary, but any modifications require a drafting fee to be determined at the time.

Christian-Based Estate Planning

Christian-based estate planning promotes the transfer of assets at death in a manner consistent with biblical principles of stewardship. Christian-based estate plans differ from secular plans in that they promote generational wealth, sensible charitable giving, and financial responsibility among beneficiaries.

Promoting Generational Wealth

A Christian based estate plan seeks to promote generational wealth. This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways and its our job to understand your values and provide solutions.  All to often estates are liquidated, homes sold, and money is distributed to beneficiaries.

Christian based estate planning seeks to distribute assets in a manner which promotes responsibility and accountability through the biblical principles of stewardship.

Promoting Sensible Charitable Giving

A Christian based estate plan seeks to promote sensible charitable giving by making it easy to provide either lump sum or periodic contributions for charitable purposes. For example, a person with a love and appreciation for the arts may want to direct a small portion of their property to establish a scholarship in their name. This could be done as simply as directing the trustee to establish a scholarship with your church providing for a $1,000 payment to one student per year interested in pursuing a career in art and has been accepted to a college or university. For $20,000 you have funded a scholarship for twenty years!

Promoting Financial Responsibility Among Beneficiaries

A Christian based estate plan seeks to promote financial responsibility among beneficiaries. Most estate plans call for the estate to be liquidated and distributed outright to the beneficiaries. This can have disastrous consequences.

It may be wise to distribute this money in the form of monthly or bi-annual payments as to promote sensible spending. You could authorize your trustee to give a lump sum advance exceptions should the beneficiary need more money for a down payment on property or to pay for educational needs.  The sky is the limit on options, but the purpose is to promote financial responsibility and accountability.

Examples Of How Biblical Principles Of Stewardship Can Be Incorporated In Your Estate Plan

• Clause that requires payment only after beneficiary has completed a course on financial responsibility.
• Clause that requires monies be spent on life insurance policies for your grandchildren.
• A requirement that money only be distributed to beneficiaries only for the purchase of a home or rental property.
• A requirement that periodic distributions be given after attendance at an annual or biennial family reunion.

These are just a few examples. However, the purpose is to promote sustained generational wealth. You worked hard and endured countless sacrifices to amass your wealth. A plan that promotes generational wealth and will allow you to pass your values along to your beneficiaries for generations to come.