What concerns should married couples have when planning their estate?
This question actually spans multiple topics. From taxes to asset protection to questions about remarriage and mandatory prenups, married couples face different issues than single persons. And blended families face additional concerns about how to fairly benefit children and step-children or children from different spouses.
We can’t cover all of this in one article. Instead, this series will break up these concepts into multiple articles which you can read.
We will start with discuss the character of property, which is a reference to joint property versus separate property. We will move on to looking at topics about how this affects blended families, meaning spouses that have children from prior marriages.
Married couples also have tax implications, and tax advantages, over unmarried persons at death. You need to know that strategies exist to reduce tax liability for married couples.
Spouses with a big age gap are sometimes interested in what would happen if a surviving spouse remarries after the death of the first spouse. We have estate planning strategies to address those concerns as well.
Do married couples need estate planning in Oklahoma?
The answer is yes. We believe that everyone, married or single, needs an estate plan in Oklahoma. An estate plan is your way of exercising control over the situation and leaving your family with certainty, instead of uncertainty. In fact, an estate plan with a trust is the only way to keep your family out of court, and avoid potential conflict.
What happens if a married person dies without a will?
What happens if a married couple does not have any type of estate plan? The state of Oklahoma has its own plan. This is referred to as the laws of intestacy, which is basically a default plan set up by state law. However, it’s not automatic. It still requires a probate case to be filed in every county in which property was owned. It’s quite possible that multiple probates could be required. And from there, the state law will dictate who gets what.
Under current Oklahoma law, half of the estate goes to the deceased person’s spouse, and the other half to the children. This is problematic when the children are minors. It is a stark reality when a widow realizes she must share her husband’s property with toddlers and babies. Proper estate planning prevents this undesirable situation.
What happens if a married person dies with a will?
When a person dies with a will, they can avoid the problem of half their estate going to their children while their surviving spouse is still alive. Which is usually preferred by married couples. Most of the time, a person wants his or her spouse to take over the estate, then let it go to the kids after both spouses have died.
While a Last Will & Testament does accomplish this outcome, it still requires the surviving spouse to go to court to complete the probate process. We’ve written about the many reasons why you do not want to put your spouse through this legal process. The solution to keeping your spouse and family out of court is to utilize trust-based estate planning.
In the next article, we will explain how to keep your surviving spouse out of court.