Planning your estate in Texas should begin with clarifying your priorities. You need to decide which assets you want to leave to specific people. You also want to be clear on who those people will be. These are all questions that you should keep in mind as you decide which assets you want to have in your plan.
Choose the assets you wish to live off
One of the first questions you are going to need to find an answer to is which assets you want to live off of during your retirement. These assets will be in sharp contrast to the assets that you wish to include in your estate planning and probate designation. These latter assets are the ones that you will want to leave behind for your heirs to enjoy.
You may choose to supplement your stable sources of income with a number of distributions. These are the ones that are destined to come straight from your taxable investments. To begin with, your stable sources may include any pensions you have access to. You should also consider Social Security and any annuities.
Choosing the assets to leave to heirs
Drawing up your estate plan will usually involve a great deal of consideration when it comes to the needs of your heirs. It will be up to you to do all that you can in order to ensure a viable future for them. You can do this by deciding in advance which assets your estate plan will leave for them.
You should first make a distinction between the assets you plan to use for retirement income and the ones you can safely leave behind for your heirs. Once the choice is made, you should mark it off clearly in your plan so as to avoid confusion.
