Estate Planning

Establish Your Legacy

for generations to come.

Estate planning is the primary focus at Beacon Legacy Group. While based in Cookeville, we serve clients across the State of Tennessee. Beacon Legacy Group provides a variety of Estate Planning services and plans ranging from foundation planning to advanced planning.

Every Tennessean currently has an Estate Plan, some just do not know it. Without an intentional plan put into action, the State of Tennessee will decide your planning for you. This is probably not what you want. At Beacon Legacy Group, we believe Tennesseans are in the best position to decide the outcome of their estates.

Our Estate Planning Services include:

Last Will and Testaments
Powers of Attorney for Health Care
Powers of Attorney for Property
Advance Directives for Health Care
Trusts
Asset Protection Plans
Gifting
Special Needs Planning
Advanced Estate Planning Strategies

Our Estate Planning attorneys can assist you further with a conference to determine what types of services would be beneficial for you and your family. Contact us today and let us help you establish your legacy and enable financial security and prosperity to pass on to your next generation.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

A Last Will and Testament is just one part of your overall foundational planning that we believe every Tennessean should incorporate into his or her Estate Plan. At Beacon Legacy Group, we believe every adult who either has children or owns a home should have a Will executed.

A Last Will and Testament directs the payments of valid debts and expenses, passes ownership of the probate assets to the persons named in the Will, and designates a personal representative to oversee the administration of an estate. A Will is also where an individual will nominate a guardian for their minor children if something should happen to them.

We recommend every new resident of Tennessee to have their Will reviewed or updated because Tennessee laws may impact issues related to beneficiaries and property. We also recommend those with major life changes such as a marriage, divorce, or the birth of a child or grandchild to update their Will. Finally, significant changes in real property such as the sale or purchase of a home could mean that an Estate Plan should be revisited.

At Beacon Legacy Group, we make sure prospective Clients understand that a Will has no legal capacity until after death. In other words, a Last Will and Testament does not control an individual’s affairs during their lifetime, such as when they may become incapacitated. Also, it is important for prospective clients to understand that a Last Will and Testament must be admitted to a probate court to open an estate for the distribution of the estate assets. A Last Will and Testament guides and controls the probate process.

Power of Attorney

A Power of Attorney is a legal agreement that allows the authority for certain powers to be transferred to another person of your choosing. What those specific powers consist of depends on the terms of the document. The powers can be overly broad or narrow depending on your wishes. A Power of Attorney terminates upon the death of the maker of the document. A Durable Power of Attorney should be utilized when the intent of the maker is for the Power of Attorney to continue in the event of incapacity.

A Durable Power of Attorney for Property allows an individual to appoint an agent to possess a broad range of financial power over the individual’s property and assets. This means that if at some point the individual is unable to manage their legal and financial affairs, and the individual is considered to be “incapacitated” or “disabled,” the named agent may manage their finances and property according to the terms of the Durable Power of Attorney. For example, an individual can give their agent broad powers to dispose of, sell, convey and encumber their real and personal property. It is important to note, that Durable Powers of Attorney for Property should be frequently updated because banks and other financial institutions may hesitate to honor a power of attorney that is more than a year old.

A Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care allows an individual to appoint an agent to make health care and end-of-life decisions on their behalf. This document will give the individual’s agents the authority to act if they should become incapacitated. An agent will have the ability to stand in the individual’s shoes and make their health care decisions during the time the individual is incapacitated. In this document, an individual can give their agent the authority to access their medical records and talk with their health care providers.

Advance Health Care Directive

Any adult in the State of Tennessee may implement an Advance Directive for Health Care. An Advance Directive for Health Care is a legal document that explains how an individual wants medical decisions about their health care to be made in the event that they cannot make their own decisions. An Advanced Directive allows a physician, health care team, and loved ones to know and understand the level of care that an individual wants and who the individual wants to make decisions for them when they can’t make those critical decisions. The Advanced Directive allows an individual to express their values and desires related to end-of-life care. Without this important legal document, health care providers do not have clear guidance on how to proceed in emergencies and loved ones are placed in a stressful position to guess as to how an individual would like to handle important matters, such as whether or not the individual would want their life to be prolonged if they were in a coma with no reasonable chance of recovery. This document is included in our Foundational Planning at Beacon Legacy Group.

Trusts

Revocable Living Trusts, Irrevocable Trusts, Testamentary Trusts, Special Needs Trusts, and Other Advance Estate Planning Strategies and Instruments

TRUSTS: Revocable Living Trusts, Irrevocable Trusts, Testamentary Trusts, Special Needs Trusts, and Other Advance Estate Planning Strategies and Instruments What exactly is a trust and when or why would you need a trust? At the fundamental level, a trust is a fiduciary relationship in which a person, the trustor, gives another person, the trustee, the right to hold title to property or assets for the benefit of a third party, the beneficiary. Trusts can be utilized for a wide variety of purposes to achieve specific goals.

There are a variety of trusts that the attorneys at Beacon Legacy Group can assist you with, depending on your needs. Trusts can be foundational or complex depending on the needs of an individual. Trusts can accomplish a variety of legal and tax planning goals. Trusts can allow an individual’s estate assets to pass outside of probate, minimize estate or gift taxes, protect property from future creditors, or provide and invest property for a third party.

At times, trusts can create significant tax and monetary advantages for the beneficiary of the trust. Importantly, trusts can continue to operate long after the trustor has passed away to continue to achieve a variety of goals for the benefit of an individual’s family or loved ones.

At Beacon Legacy Group, it is our intent and desire to accomplish a foundational estate plan for every Client. Once the foundational planning of an individual’s estate has been accomplished, our estate planning attorneys will then implement specific solutions geared to our client’s personal goals or advance estate planning needs.

We utilize a variety of trusts and legal entities to achieve these planning needs. Some of these entities include creating a Limited Liability Company (LLC) formed under state law for tax purposes and asset protection, a Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT) that moves your primary residence out of your taxable estate while giving you complete use and possession of the home during your lifetime, a Dynasty Trust which protects assets from estate and gift taxes and will provide for your children and grandchildren until they reach a predetermined age or an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) which is funded with life insurance to avoid and minimize a variety of taxes and ensures the payout to beneficiaries is taxfree.

There are other additional trusts and planning entities that are used on a case-by-case basis. With the current economic environment, it is important to choose attorneys who stay abreast of changes in estate and tax law.

HOLISTIC PLANNING

At Beacon Legacy Group, we also offer the unique option of working in concert with financial advisors, life insurance agents, CPAs and/or financial professionals if you would like to pursue those options to further discuss appropriate avenues of asset protection in your Estate Plan.

Our Estate Planning attorneys can assist you further with a conference to determine what specific planning strategies and instruments would be beneficial for you and your family. Contact us today to allow us to assist you in Establishing Your Legacy.

Our Estate Planning Process

CREATE A WINNING TEAM

During this part of the Estate Planning process, you will complete our initial intake packet to provide us with basic contact information, a snap shot of your current assets and an idea of your Estate Planning goals and objectives.

Discover the Facts

We will discuss in detail your background and family, goals and concerns, and any issues identified in your initial intake packet that require further consideration. At the end of this meeting, a fee range will be quoted based on a preliminary plan design.

Plan Design

During this meeting, your proposed Estate Plan design will be presented to you. Together, we will create a customized Estate Plan strategy that meets your goals and objectives while addressing your concerns and anxieties.

Plan Review

We review your Estate Planning Documents with you to ensure that you understand your Estate Plan and that it meets your goals and objectives. Your changes are then implemented to your Estate Plan prior to the Signing Ceremony.

Signing Ceremony

At this point, your final Estate Planning documents are finalized and ready for you to sign. You will sign your documents in front of one of our notaries and two disinterested witnesses. After you sign the finalized documents, your Estate Plan will be in effect and you can celebrate completing this milestone.

Implement the Plan

Once your documents have been executed, we are available to assist you with beneficiary designation changes and other funding issues to ensure your planning is effective and works as designed. Some Clients request assistance with funding, while others prefer to complete it themselves. We will discuss your wishes at the Signing Ceremony.

Download our Estate Planning Process

Annual Review

A Last Will and Testament is is a living document, and can be revisited as needed. Upon your request, after your Estate Plan has been established, our Attorneys are available to educate your family members, executors, trustees, agents and beneficiaries about your Estate Plan, their roles in the plan, and why the plan is designed as it is.

We take confidentiality very seriously. Subject to certain limitations, nothing about a Client’s estate plan will be revealed unless our client specifically requests or authorizes us to release it.

Formerly Lannom Law LLC