Estate Planning
Spokane Estate Planning Attorneys Who Help You Plan for Life – Not Just Death
Whether you're preparing a will, forming a trust, or simply wondering what estate planning actually involves, you're in the right place. At The Whipple Law Group, our Spokane estate planning attorneys help you protect what matters most - now and in the future. This guide answers common questions, explains key tools, and shares how we support our clients at every stage of life.
What is Estate Planning?
Estate Planning is the process of organizing how a person's estate will be distributed and managed during their lifetime as well as after their death. In legal circles, an “estate” is another way of saying “assets.” In other words, your estate is, basically, your money and your physical (or non-fungible) stuff. Estate assets can include the following:
- real estate
- vehicles
- stocks
- bonds
- savings accounts
- insurance policy benefit
- retirement
- cryptocurrencies
- and more!
Even the interest in a pending lawsuit can be an asset. Valuing your estate can take into account factors such as future earning potential, sweat equity in a business, or even a marriage. Estate planning done correctly, however, is so much more than the management of assets. Effective planning not only addresses your assets, like property or investments, but may also consider your personal choices if you are in a condition that makes it impossible to make important decisions regarding your health and finances.
Why Estate Planning Matters to You
At each stage of your journey, we help you sort through the issues in your life and assist you in planning to achieve your dreams and goals. We work in concert with financial planners, accountants, and numerous variety of agents. We put together a custom team of professionals focused on accomplishing the objectives YOU have decided are important to you. The Whipple Law Group creates legal vehicles designed to get you where you want to go, efficiently and effectively.
For example, when you are 18 you might be thinking about your first job and buying a car. In later life, you may marry, plan a wedding, purchase a house, and start a family. Different priorities, and different income streams, call for different strategies.
Later, issues such as financing the costs of children approaching college age, special needs children, bigger toys, investment properties, and helping out parents all work to change perceptions, alter priorities, and require unique legal planning solutions.
Without a plan, your estate could be controlled by state law – the government – not your wishes. This means:
- The wrong people may inherit your assets (or the State may inherit them)
- A judge may decide who cares for your children
- Your least trusted family member could end up in charge of your medical decisions…
A comprehensive, customized estate plan ensures your decisions are respected, your loved ones protected, and your values are carried forward to the next generation.
Legal Tools We Use to Protect Your Legacy
The Whipple Law Group is dedicated to helping our clients protect, preserve, and grow their estate assets. In addition to deciding ‘what' is in the estate, we assist our clients in determining how and when they want to have assets available to them throughout their life. From creating a will to developing a trust, we help you create a plan that perfectly reflects your wishes. We'll not only protect your interests, but the interests of those you care about as well.
Proper planning does not need to be expensive. Our steadfast opinion is that effective planning is always timely, and should be accessible. To accomplish this, we provide a variety of interrelated services, designed to meet each of our individual client's needs. Call us today to schedule a consultation and speak with a Spokane attorney to find out how we can help you plan for your future. Too often, estate planners focus on end-of-life issues only. At The Whipple Law Group, we consider this shortsighted.
Some of the Estate-Related Products We Help You Develop Include:
Business Formation and Preservation [Including Family Farms]
An often-overlooked avenue to preserve and protect assets is through the incorporation of a business. We assist our clients in drafting formation documents that are flexible enough to suit their objectives but strong enough to ensure implementation.
Last Will and Testament
Writing a valid Will is one of the most caring things you will ever do for your loved ones. We sensitively assist our clients in thinking through choices and helping to define their wishes. Your estate attorney will then formalize these decisions into a robust planning document that will convey our clients' wishes beyond their passing.
Durable Power of Attorney (DPOA)
A current DPOA is vital to have on hand in the event you become sick. If you are in the hospital and unconscious, who will pay the mortgage, any bills, feed your pets, and make your important medical decisions? You can, and should, choose who that person or persons are to be. The DPOA document grants authority to act on your behalf only in the event it is needed. However, you must draft your DPOA before it is needed or else it is often too late. Call us today to have this important document prepared as soon as possible.
Health Care Directives/Living Wills
Another vital component of your suite of estate planning documents is your Health Care Directives. These documents state your wishes regarding life-prolonging measures to be implemented in an end-of-life situation. Our estate attorneys can help you explore these issues, empathically assisting you to reach the decisions best suited to you and reflective of your individual principles and spiritual beliefs.
Another important benefit, presented by having your Living Will executed, is that it relieves your loved ones from trying to decide what you would have preferred.
“We have seen many unfortunate arguments avoided simply because of the availability of a current Health Care Directive.”
What Types of Trusts Do Washington Estate Planning Attorneys Use?
Trusts can help you minimize probate, protect assets, and control how your legacy is passed on. We help Spokane clients choose the right trust structure for their unique needs.
These legal instruments empower you to protect your current assets while preparing for the future transfer of these assets to your loved ones. We assist clients in determining the ‘best fit' in terms of the trust and the benefitting individual(s). We also discuss the need to appoint a trustee and decide how best to determine ‘successor' trustees to ensure the long-term success and stability of your trust.
Revocable Living Trusts
A Revocable Living Trust is a popular estate planning tool, prized for the flexibility and control it offers during the grantor's lifetime. Because the trust can be amended, modified, or completely revoked at any time while the grantor is alive, it allows for ongoing adjustments to reflect changing circumstances or wishes. This level of control provides peace of mind, knowing that one's legacy is thoughtfully managed and can evolve as needed. Upon the grantor's death, the trust becomes irrevocable, and its assets are distributed directly to the named beneficiaries—bypassing the delays and expenses of probate. If any changes to the trust are desired after this point, all beneficiaries must agree to the proposed modifications.
Special Needs Trusts
These legal documents, also called, Supplemental Needs Trusts (“SNT”) are specialized vehicles for the benefit of persons who have a disability. A SNT ‘holds' funds for the benefit of the individual with a mental or physical disability. The SNT allows the individual to continue to maintain eligibility and receive benefits from needs-based government programs, while also receiving their inheritance, or financial gifts, from friends and family without being removed from those assistance programs.
Pet/Animal Trusts
Many of our clients, and most all of our staff, share their hearts, homes, and lives with one or more beloved animals. The gifts of love and support our pets provide to us defies description. Making necessary arrangements for the care of our animals in the event of our passing is a decision that many make informally, and forget can be made formally – through a trust.
A Pet Trust allocates resources, from your estate, dedicated to providing for your companion animals. It serves to identify the person(s) responsible for administering these funds and guarantee the care and placement of your animals. Providing planning for the well-being of your pets is particularly important in cases involving long-lived animals including dogs, cats, horses, birds, and reptiles where ongoing care may be a burden to caregivers otherwise.
Spendthrift Trusts
Our clients are intelligent, caring, responsible individuals working hard to earn assets and grow their estates. They want to provide a satisfying quality of life for themselves and for their family. The very last thing they want is to have the gifts they leave their children to cause harm.
Parents can use spendthrift trusts to specifically decide where, when, and how they want the assets they leave to be made available to their heirs. We talk with our clients about each of their children individually. We discuss options including restricting trust benefits for special purposes like schooling, making distributions over time rather than in a lump sum, and how to protect family assets from being taken by persons outside the family. Prudent decision-making now can serve to provide love and support to your family long after you pass. Let our Spokane attorneys help ensure your legacy accomplishes the goals and desires intended.
Firearm Trusts
Increasingly, complicated firearms laws can cause families to lose priceless heirlooms and collector pieces. Some heirlooms may have been a part of the family for generations. We assist our clients in avoiding the pitfalls of testacy and inheritance laws that lead to such unfortunate, irreparable consequences. We effectively help our clients construct the legal mechanisms necessary to keep legacy firearms in trust for future generations.
Click here for more firearm trust information
How Our Spokane Estate Planning Lawyers Help
Our mission is simple: helping you live more, protect more, and plan better. We offer:
- Collaborative planning with your accountant or financial advisor
- Personalized legal strategies at every life stage
- Ongoing updates as your life and laws change
Whether you're turning 18 or 88, just married or just retired, we create plans that evolve with you.
Searching for a 'trust attorney near me' or 'estate planning attorney near me'? Look no further—you've found the estate planning team you can trust. Whether you're securing your legacy or navigating probate, our dedicated Washington attorneys are ready to guide you every step of the way. Reach out today at 509-869-3223 or fill out the form below and discover how we can protect what matters most to you.