Estate planning is a way of preparing, during your lifetime, to settle your affairs and provide for your loved ones when you're no longer here. While there’s a common misconception that estate planning is for the wealthy, the truth is everyone can benefit from estate planning. An estate plan doesn’t have to be a complicated or costly undertaking. A little estate planning now can save your family members significant time and money in the future by minimizing headaches, second-guessing, conflict, and probate court proceedings.
What Types of Estate Planning Documents Might You Need?
The documents you’ll need as part of your estate plan—a will or maybe a simple living trust, for example—will be determined by your circumstances. The life situations below show how each situation raises its own estate planning considerations. These examples are, of course, very broadly sketched, and it’s always useful to speak to an estate planning attorney about the details of your life and how they might affect your estate planning strategy.
You’re Young and Healthy and Don’t Own Significant or Complicated Assets
Creating a simple will might be enough for now. A common misunderstanding is that a will avoids probate. It doesn’t. Instead, a will allows you to tell the probate court what to do with your property. Without a will, a court will give your property away according to your state’s intestacy laws, and the results might not align with what you would have wanted.
While a will doesn’t avoid probate, your estate might qualify as a “small estate” if you don’t own significant assets. The upper limit for total assets to be considered a small estate varies by state. Qualifying as a small estate means that your property will skip probate completely or at least allow for probate shortcuts that are less expensive and take less time than formal probate.
You also can easily designate “payable on death” (POD) beneficiaries for many types of assets, which will keep those assets out of probate. For example, if your only significant asset is your bank account, you can fill in a simple form, available from your bank, to name a POD beneficiary; your bank account will be transferred at your death to the POD beneficiary without going through probate.
It’s possible to make a will without using a lawyer. In fact, in a survey of our readers, nearly 40% went the do-it-yourself route, often with the help of services such as Nolo’s Quicken Willmaker & Trust. Down the line, if you acquire more assets or have children, you can always revise your will, create a simple revocable living trust, or create other estate planning documents.
You Have Young Children
If you're a parent of young children, one of your greatest concerns will be ensuring that they're taken care of in the event of your death. At the very least, you’ll want to create a will that names a personal guardian—a trusted adult to take care of your children. (Note that even if you create a living trust, you’ll still need a will to name a personal guardian.)
You also should consider naming a property guardian for your children. This person will manage the assets that pass to your children through your will. So it’s a good idea to name a property guardian even if you have a trust—just in case some property doesn’t end up in the trust. The same person can be the personal and property guardian, but there can be situations when it’s appropriate to name different people for these roles.
The court isn’t bound by your choice of guardian but is extremely likely to follow it. In rare circumstances—like your choice is unfit or unwilling to serve—a judge can appoint someone other than your choice as guardian. But if you don’t have a will or haven’t designated a guardian, a judge definitely will do the choosing—and few people are comfortable leaving this important decision to a stranger.
You also might want to consider creating a trust for minors, or some other type of trust that names an adult (the “trustee”) to manage the inheritance you leave for your children. The trustee can be—but doesn’t have to be—the same person you select as personal guardian. You’ll likely need a lawyer’s help with creating a trust for minors.
You Own Your Home
If you own real estate, it’s likely to be one of your most valuable assets. Keeping your real estate out of probate can translate to significant savings in cost and time. You can go about this in a few ways:
- You can create a revocable living trust and transfer your house to the trust. Property held in your living trust won't go through probate.
- In more than half of states, you can use what’s called a “transfer on death deed,” or a “beneficiary deed,” to transfer your house to someone else upon your death. This is a simple process if it’s available in your state.
- You can also co-own the house with someone "with a right of survivorship." With this type of property ownership, upon the death of one co-owner, the house will automatically pass to the surviving co-owner without the need for probate. But co-owning property can raise other potential issues; speak to a lawyer if you’re thinking of changing your sole ownership to a joint ownership.
If you’re considering transferring ownership of your house to your trust—or to another person—you’ll need to prepare and file a new deed. If you have a mortgage on your home, you should check with your lender to make sure transferring your house to a trust won’t affect your loan.
You Own Significant Assets
If the total value of your assets is well into the millions, you’ll want to consider whether your estate might be subject to federal or state estate tax. For deaths in 2025, the federal exemption amount is $13.99 million ($27.98 million for married couples); any amount over this is subject to a sizable federal tax.
In 2026, this exemption will increase to $15 million ($30 million for married couples) and will be adjusted for inflation every following year. However, the threshold amount is always subject to change by Congress. Some states also impose their own estate taxes, often at lower thresholds than federal estate taxes.
If you think your estate might owe estate tax, you can use various types of trusts to avoid or reduce the tax. But the most common type of trust, the revocable living trust, won’t help you avoid estate taxes. On the other hand, irrevocable trusts, such as an irrevocable life insurance trust, generally will shield assets from the estate tax. But these trusts tend to be quite complicated to create, so you’ll want a lawyer’s help to create one.
You’re Older or Have Health Issues
As people age, and particularly when they encounter health challenges, they often think about who will make decisions for them at the end of life. They also might wonder if their medical decisions will be honored. Because life is unpredictable, everyone can benefit from creating the following documents:
- A durable financial power of attorney, which names someone to take over your financial affairs in the event of your incapacitation
- A medical power of attorney, which designates someone to make medical decisions on your behalf if you’re unable to, and
- A living will, which states your wishes and instructions for end-of-life care. (In many states, the living will and medical power of attorney are combined into one document often called a health care directive or a similar name.)
If you’d like to get a sense of how often people create these documents, a recent survey of our readers with an estate plan revealed that 81% created a will, 71% created a living trust, 71% created a financial power of attorney, and 82% created a health care directive. Three-quarters of the readers were 60 years old or older.
As people progress through life, they also tend to acquire more assets; it might be worth thinking about whether creating a simple revocable living trust, which keeps your property out of probate, might be preferable to a will. But even if you do create a living trust, you’ll likely still need a very simple will, called a “pour-over will.” The pour-over will acts as a backup for any property not held in the trust before death by transferring that property to the trust during probate.
You also might want to consider making final arrangements. Many people find that writing down their wishes for the disposition of their body (for example, organ donation, burial, and cremation) and their preferences for memorial services can provide peace of mind. Planning ahead might also help avoid hurried decisions or disagreements among family members. You can also make arrangements with a funeral home or prepare your own obituary. In a “final arrangements” document, you can alert loved ones of any pre-arranged plans and share as much as you like regarding your wishes.
You Have Other Special Circumstances
If you have other concerns—perhaps a child with special needs, worries about potential creditors, a pet you’d like to provide for after you die, or charities you’d like to support in substantial ways while maximizing tax benefits—you’ll want to get the help of a lawyer. Many types of trusts can address very specific situations, and an experienced lawyer can help you navigate and create these trusts.
Organizing Your Information and Accounts
A thorough estate plan should also contain a summary of the information someone would need to settle your affairs. It’s a good idea to give the person who will handle your estate all relevant information on your assets, debts, taxes, online accounts and passwords, safety deposit box locations, and so on. You’ll make the job vastly easier if the person can readily identify the entirety of your assets, settle your debts, and access your accounts, rather than having to chase down each piece of information and possibly missing important details. It would be a shame, for example, to have an asset to go unclaimed simply because no one knew it existed.
Hiring an Estate Planning Lawyer Versus Doing It Yourself
You can create some of the simpler estate planning documents discussed above (including wills and simple revocable living trusts, powers of attorney, health care directives, and transfer on death deeds) on your own if you’re willing to put in the time or do a little research on estate planning basics. For details on how long it took our readers to complete their DIY estate planning, and how much it cost them, see How Much Does Estate Planning Cost With and Without an Attorney?
For more complex documents and situations—like estate tax avoidance or planning for a child with special needs—you’ll want to consult an attorney. An attorney can walk you through an estate planning checklist to make sure you have every document you need. Even if you don’t have complicated circumstances, you might want to pay extra for an attorney to save time.