Maintaining Your Relational Estate Plan
Estate plans only work well when they are maintained. As your beneficiaries, personal representatives, agents, and assets change due to life events, the only solution is regular maintenance. Our Guardian program is designed to regularly maintain your Relational Estate Plan for you and ensure that it works the way you intend when you need it. As a member of the Guardian Program, we will proactively maintain and update your plan each year and assist your personal representatives and agents with implementing the plan when it is needed.
Who Is It For?
Our Guardian Program is the right fit for you if you create a trust-based plan and want to ensure:
- Your trust and other documents stay up to date and accurate.
- Your plan will be easy for your personal representatives to implement.
- Your plan will work as you intend when the time comes.
- Your agents and personal representatives have a relationship with professionals who will help them implement your plan.
Why Do I Need It?
Changes in your relationships, finances, or tax laws can make certain portions of your plan obsolete. Unfortunately, many people go through the work and expense of setting up a Relational Estate Plan only to set it aside and let it get outdated over the years. This can lead to your plan becoming ineffective or even damaging to your loved ones. The Guardian Program avoids this kind of disaster for you and your loved ones, while relieving you of the responsibility to update your plan yourself.
What Is Included in the Guardian Program?
Guardian Program members will receive these services on a yearly basis:
- Holistic Annual Review and Meeting: Once each year, we will conduct a comprehensive review and audit of your Relational Estate Plan. During this review, we will reassess your goals, assets, major purchases and sales, beneficiaries, personal representatives, documents, and any recent changes in law to make sure that your plan accurately reflects your wishes and remains easy to implement.
- Complimentary Changes to Documents: Once a year, we will revise the legal documents in your Relational Estate Plan to make any changes you want to the beneficiaries, agents, or personal representatives in your documents.
- Best Practice Updates: We will keep the legal documents in your Relational Estate Plan up to date with the best practices in the industry.
- Ongoing Trust Assistance: We will provide ongoing assistance with funding your Trust, including maintaining an accurate list of the assets in your Trust.
- Practical Documents Maintenance: We will draft and keep your Estate Guide and Inventory and Gifts and Memories Lists up to date.
- Controlled Storage and Access: We will maintain a copy of your entire Relational Estate Plan (including both the Incapacity Plan and Distribution Plan) in our secure online portal or physically in our office, at your option.
- Guaranteed Availability and Support: We will be available to help implement any part of your Relational Estate Plan whenever it is needed.
Is It Required?
Enrollment in the Guardian Program is completely optional. If you do not enroll, please make sure you take time each year to review and update your Relational Estate Plan to ensure that it will work the way you want.
When Can I Enroll?
You can enroll at any time from the date your Relational Estate Plan is finished to one year afterwards. You cannot enroll more than one year later since changes may have already made your plan obsolete.
How do I cancel?
You can cancel at any time by emailing or calling us.
