Estate planning gives you the opportunity to decide what should happen to your property, who should be able to make decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself, and how you want important financial and health care matters handled.
A thoughtful estate plan is not limited to preparing for death. It can also provide direction during your lifetime if an illness, injury, or other circumstance leaves you unable to manage your affairs independently.
Keller Legal Services helps individuals and families in Naperville, DuPage County, Kane County, Will County, and surrounding Illinois communities create estate plans suited to their property, family relationships, priorities, and concerns. Whether you are creating your first plan or reconsidering documents prepared years ago, the goal is to put clear instructions in place before they are needed.
There is no single document that constitutes an estate plan. Instead, planning commonly involves several documents and decisions that work together.
Depending on your circumstances, an estate plan may include:
The appropriate combination depends on what you own, whom you want to protect, how you want property distributed, and who you trust to act for you if necessary.
A plan should also account for how these different components interact. Preparing a will without considering beneficiary designations, trust ownership, or powers of attorney can leave important parts of the overall plan unaddressed.
A will allows you to provide instructions concerning the distribution of property controlled by the will and nominate an executor to administer your estate.
Illinois has specific requirements for a valid will. Under 755 ILCS 5/4-3, a will generally must be in writing, signed by the testator or by someone in the testator’s presence and at the testator’s direction, and attested in the testator’s presence by two or more credible witnesses.
A will can address important matters, but it does not control every asset a person owns. Property held in certain trusts, accounts with beneficiary designations, and jointly owned property with survivorship rights may pass through mechanisms outside the will.
That distinction is one reason estate planning should consider the entire financial picture rather than treating the will as a stand-alone document. Keller Legal Services discusses the role and limitations of wills in an Illinois estate plan in greater detail.
Trusts can serve different purposes depending on how they are created, funded, and structured.
A trust generally involves property being held by a trustee for one or more beneficiaries according to the terms of the trust. Some people use trusts to establish a structure for managing property during their lifetime and distributing it after death. Others may have concerns involving younger beneficiaries, long-term management of assets, privacy, or the administration of property outside probate.
A trust is not automatically necessary for everyone, nor is simply signing a trust document enough to accomplish every planning objective. How assets are titled and whether property is actually transferred to the trust can be critical.
Our discussion of trusts and Illinois estate planning explains these considerations in greater depth.
One of the most important reasons to create an estate plan is something that may happen during your lifetime.
If you become unable to handle financial matters or communicate health care decisions, someone may need authority to act for you. Without advance planning, your family can face uncertainty about who has authority and what you would have wanted.
Illinois provides mechanisms for delegating these decisions through powers of attorney.
A power of attorney for property allows a person, known as the principal, to authorize an agent to act regarding designated financial and property matters.
The Illinois statutory form can grant authority involving matters such as real estate, financial accounts, investments, insurance, taxes, business operations, claims, and certain estate transactions. The particular authority given to an agent depends on the document.
The Illinois Power of Attorney Act also recognizes the significance of preserving an existing estate plan. Under 755 ILCS 45/2-9, an agent exercising granted authority must take the principal’s known estate plan into account and attempt to preserve it, subject to the provisions of the statute.
Choosing an agent therefore deserves careful consideration. This person may potentially have substantial authority over your financial affairs at a time when you cannot supervise every decision.
The Keller Legal Services page addressing powers of attorney examines how these documents work and what to consider when selecting an agent.
Financial authority is separate from authority over medical and personal care decisions.
Illinois law recognizes an individual’s right to control personal care and medical treatment and provides for the delegation of health care decision-making authority to an agent. Article IV of the Illinois Power of Attorney Act addresses powers of attorney for health care.
Health care planning can involve decisions about who should speak for you, what authority that person should have, and how your wishes should be communicated if you are unable to make or express decisions yourself.
These issues can overlap with other advance health care directives that address medical care and end-of-life preferences.
Estate planning documents frequently require you to choose people for positions of considerable responsibility.
Depending on your plan, you may need to select:
The same person may be appropriate for more than one role, but that should not be assumed.
Consider the responsibilities attached to each position. Someone who is a good choice to make health care decisions may not necessarily be the person you want managing financial assets. A person you trust personally may not have the availability or organizational ability needed to administer an estate or trust.
It can also be useful to designate appropriate successors in case your first choice cannot or will not serve when the time comes.
An estate plan does more than state who should inherit.
How an asset is legally owned can determine how it transfers. For example, an individually owned asset may be treated differently from property held in trust, property owned with survivorship rights, or an account governed by a beneficiary designation.
This means that preparing estate planning documents without reviewing asset ownership can produce unintended results.
An estate planning review may therefore include questions such as:
Retirement accounts and life insurance policies deserve particular attention because beneficiary designations can have significant consequences for how those assets transfer.
Without a valid will, Illinois intestacy law generally determines who receives probate property rather than allowing you to choose the beneficiaries yourself.
The absence of planning can create other issues as well. There may be no nominated executor, no personally selected agent with authority to manage financial affairs, and no designated health care agent available to carry out your wishes.
The concern is not necessarily that the law provides no solution. Illinois law establishes procedures for situations in which people have not planned. The concern is that those statutory results and procedures may not reflect what you would have chosen for yourself or your family.
Estate planning allows you to make many of those choices in advance.
An estate plan created years ago may no longer reflect your current family, finances, or priorities.
It can be worth reviewing your documents after significant events such as:
A review does not necessarily mean every document needs to be replaced. The purpose is to determine whether the plan still accomplishes what you intend.
Estate planning takes place during life. Probate is a legal process that may become necessary after death to administer certain property and obligations.
Good planning can affect what ultimately passes through probate, but avoiding probate should not necessarily be the only objective of an estate plan. The larger goal is to create a coordinated structure for property, decision-making, and administration that reflects your priorities.
Families dealing with an estate after a death can find more information about the Illinois process on Keller Legal Services’ probate practice page.
Estate planning is not limited to people with significant wealth. Powers of attorney and health care planning can matter regardless of the size of an estate, and a will can provide instructions concerning probate property and administration.
Sometimes a relatively straightforward plan may rely heavily on a will, but a will does not address every planning concern. Powers of attorney, health care documents, beneficiary designations, asset ownership, and potentially trusts should also be considered.
Not necessarily. A trust and a will perform different functions, and a person using a trust may still have a will as part of the overall plan.
There is no single schedule that applies to everyone. A review is particularly worthwhile after major family, financial, health, or legal changes, or when enough time has passed that you are no longer certain the documents reflect your current wishes.
Estate planning is easier to address when you have time to consider your options rather than when your family is already confronting a medical emergency or other unexpected event.
Keller Legal Services can help you evaluate what you own, whom you want to protect, who should have authority to act for you, and which estate planning documents fit those objectives. We assist clients in Naperville, DuPage County, Kane County, Will County, and surrounding Illinois communities.
To discuss creating or updating an Illinois estate plan, call 630-505-1515 or contact Keller Legal Services to schedule a free consultation.
