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This video describes what you can do as part of your overall estate planning strategy to provide appropriately for your spouse.
Married couples customarily go through the estate planning process together. Often, providing for one’s spouse is the most important objective of someone, even more so than: providing for children or other beneficiaries, making the estate settlement easy, avoiding disputes, or even avoiding taxes.
Those people who put providing for their spouse as most important are often thinking, “I married up and my spouse married down. My spouse has had to put up with my shenanigans for decades, so the least I can do is make sure my spouse is adequately provided for from my estate.”
Failing to provide properly for your spouse can create a host of problems for your spouse in the future – court guardianship proceedings when you become incapacitated, having to go through a court and attorney involved probate proceeding for months or years after you pass away, having to pay significant sums of tax upon your death, being involved in a difficult estate dispute after you die, or having to get permission from others to sell your home or transact other assets after you pass away.
0:00 Provide for Spouse in Estate Plan
0:58 Failing to Provide for Spouse
2:52 Enhanced Durable Power of Attorney
3:49 Health Care Legal Documents
4:48 Living Will
6:02 Revocable Living Trust for Lifetime Planning
6:44 Should You Add Spouse as Authorized Signer?
7:34 Outright to Spouse, or In Trust for Spouse
8:59 Outright / In Trust Combo
9:37 Spouse as Executor and Trustee
10:14 Minimize Spouse’s Tax Obligations
11:45 Enable Spouse to Avoid Probate
12:12 No-Contest Clauses
This post is for informational purposes only and does not provide legal advice. Please do not act or refrain from acting based on anything you read on this site. Using this site or communicating with Rabalais Estate Planning, LLC, through this site does not form an attorney/client relationship….(read more)
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Love your videos!
Can you cover death of spouse? If the spouse dies(and they are the only ones listed on mortgage but both spouses listed on deed) with deed stating rights of survivorship. What are the surviving spouse options regarding house?
What are the options for a housewife if an only bread earner spouse refuse to do what you are suggesting? Will you pl make a video on that subject?
I've been enjoying your YouTubes. Do you have any on what kind of wills or trust
a single person with no kids need to have
Regarding estate taxes, at the 11:00 mark, did you really mean “completely unavoidable”? I think you meant to say “completely avoidable”.
Can you explain more about which estate documents would need to be set up correctly to get the unlimited federal spousal estate deduction? From earlier videos I believe one of those is the Revocable Living Trust but from this video it sounds like there are other documents as well.
I’m in NY, Can I hire you as my estate planner? Your content is amazing. Thanks.
Great topic….Thanks for your time and effort to produce these vids….
Along these same guidelines, would you provide a video or feedback on how to set up your trust and estate plan(s) to protect your long-term, unmarried partner? Also, would you demonstrate the benefits or losses in not being legally wed from a tax liability and any spousal benefits being left on the table. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Nice summary. It's easy to forget that a revocable living trust can help while one is alive in addition to after they passed. Regarding medical directives, my lawyer says where we live the hospitals are always most concerned about, and always ask about first, the authorization for release of protected health information.