Long Lake Estate Planning & Probate Attorney

Dedicated Estate-Planning Attorney Helping Long Lake Families Plan for the Future

Estate planning and probate can significantly affect your loved ones’ futures. Preparing their lives for after your passing by planning your estate can help ensure that your loved ones will have a secure future long after you’re gone.

Helping Long Lake Residents Plan Their Wills

If you haven’t left a will when you die, Minnesota’s estate laws provide guidance on how your home and other property are divided. By default, your spouse and children generally qualify as your primary heirs. If you are childless and without a spouse when you pass on, your property may default to your parents, brothers and sisters or more distant relatives. Attorney John Waldron can offer you seasoned advice on what it takes to plan your will.

Planning Trusts for Long Lake Families

Minnesota inheritance law defines a trust as the person or organization that manages your asset distribution after you pass on. You create a trust when you transfer property to another person, who becomes the trustee. Your trustee can be a financial professional, a trusted loved one, a friend, or an organization or company. Your trustee maintains the title to your property and provides management for your estate for your beneficiaries. With Attorney John Waldron, you get a seasoned take on how to best plan your trust.

Offering Power-of-Attorney Advice in Long Lake

According to Minnesota estate law, you can pick any adult of sound mind to decide on matters for you as your attorney-in-fact. Per your preference, that person has the power to decide on all financial matters of your estate. Common sense and dependability should be top factors when deciding who you should trust to have power of attorney for you. Attorney John Waldron can offer qualified advice for your power-of-attorney matters.

Setting Health Care Directives in Long Lake

Your health care directive documents in written form outline your wishes about your medical treatment in the event you can’t communicate them. It lets you entitle an agent to make your health-related decisions on your behalf. Attorney John Waldron can guide you through the process of creating a proper health care directive.

Litigating Probate for Long Lake Residents

Probate is the process of the settling of your estate after you have passed on. If you die before you’ve written a will, probate law in Minnesota mandates that a court divides your estate. Probate is sometimes needed even if a will is has been written, depending on how your assets were held as of the date of your death. With Attorney John Waldron, you get the quality, tested advice on your probate needs.

Formal vs. Informal Probate

Informal probate proceedings may involve your personal representative paying any outstanding debts and inheritances outside of court. An informal probate requires an application that includes your interest in the proceeding along with the decedent’s name, date of birth, and the county in which they lived when they died. The application must also list the names and addresses of the decedent’s spouse, children and heirs, as well as the name and address of the decedent’s personal representative.

Formal probate is usually advised for large estates, and requires courts to make certain determinations. These matters can either be fully supervised or unsupervised by a Minnesota court.

If your family in Long Lake potentially faces a probate procedure, they can benefit from having a reliable attorney like John Waldron, who can help clarify to a court how you want your estate wishes to be interpreted. Call Waldron Law Offices, Ltd. at (952) 471-0940 for a free consultation.