Once we become a parent,our children become our world. Our life revolves around them until they are adults and capable of running their own lives responsibly. Until then, we worry about their food, safety, habits, values, education, financial habits, responsibility, and so on. You name it and we are worried about it. Our children are our most prized possession and we absolutely want them to be in safe hands during our lifetime and after we are gone.
To ensure that your minors are taken care of in the same way and with the same values that you give them as family, you must design your estate plan in such a way that your children will always be taken care of by the people you want and not by strangers including courts if something bad happens to you and your spouse.
If you have no existing plan, you may not have given a thought to the difficult questions that arise for your children when you are gone. If you do have an existing plan, then you will notice that traditionally, you name guardians for your children in Wills or Trusts with no other details or consideration of any kind. These basic provisions, while necessary, may not be adequate in many circumstances, as noted below, making your plan incomplete. If something bad happens to you, the possibilities of inadequate planning and resulting unfavorable outcome are great and varied. To name a few:
- What if the named guardians are not available?
- What if the guardians are out of state or out of country at that time?
- Even if you have a plan (Wills or Trusts) your minor children could be placed with Child Protective Services Care. It may be for a temporary short period, but it could happen that your kids will be under the care of strangers until things are resolved, which you would certainly not want even for a moment. And if you have no plan whatsoever, it becomes an absolute event (i.e. your children end up with Child Protective Services).
- If your plan does not clearly address the situation, your children could be put into the custody and care of a family member who you never liked or never wanted to be raising your kids, but now possible with Court’s intervention if that family member is now willing to become a guardian.
- Your family members (with good intentions) could get into a long, drawn out, custody fight to be designated as the guardians of your children that may not be in their best interest but unfortunately cannot be controlled if your wishes and intent are not clearly and legally documented.
- A judge who has no knowledge of you, your family, your values, can become the person making the ultimate decision of who should be raising your kids, even if that assigned guardian is the last person you would have ever wanted.
- Due to your inaction of not planning or having a plan that is not completely vetted, your estate could be depleted by court costs, attorney fees, and other unnecessary fees due to custody and guardianship battles that can deprive your kids of the assets that they could have enjoyed have you had a comprehensive plan.
- Under courts supervision, with no plan or instructions left by you otherwise, your kids get the remainder of your estate when they turn into adults i.e. 18 years old. A majority of us may not want an 18-year-old to inherit financial responsibilities when they are barely out of high-school, still learning life lessons, and may not have matured to know the basics of working through and managing finances.
- If you have a Will, it is a public record that can potentially expose the details of all your assets and beneficiaries to the unscrupulous people out there who make it their business to entrap and mislead the young, financially immature, beneficiary to rob them out of their inheritance.
The traditional estate planning methods do not address these issues from a parent’s perspective which is not only inadequate, but frankly alarming. That is one of the primary reasons we ensure that any family with minor children pays a special attention to this aspect of planning for complete protection and coverage for their young children.
Protection plan for children is a legal document with clear instructions on what should happen with your children should something bad happen to you. At the Law Office of Sandhya Tulshyan, with our experience and guidance, we prepare a comprehensive plan ensuring that your children are well taken care of no matter what happens.
We are Maryland Children Protection Planning attorney serving Howard County and throughout Maryland. We also serve in New York and Washington DC.
Our office provides education session about our “protect your children” program through a Family Legacy Planning session where you are empowered with knowledge to make informed choices that best fit your needs.