Preparing for Your Estate Planning Consultation

Preparing for Your Initial Consultation

If you would like, we can provide you with a Welcome Kit from our office prior to your initial consultation. The Welcome Kit is not required and Mark would be happy to meet with you even if you have not gathered the information asked for in the Welcome Kit. Included in this Kit is a short questionnaire designed to help focus your thoughts on the planning process and a personal survey to help us gather important facts. If you choose, you may review these documents and bring them with you to your appointment.

Expect to receive a reminder phone call from our office the day before your appointment. This is simply to confirm the time and date of the appointment, and to ensure that you are still planning to attend. If you need to reschedule your appointment, please contact us immediately so that we may rearrange our schedule and perhaps make an appointment more convenient for another client.

If you would like, we can provide you with an Estate Planning Profile from our office prior to your initial consultation (or you can print one from the link at the bottom of this page). The Estate Planning Profile is not required and Mark would be happy to meet with you even if you have not gathered the information asked for in the questionnaire. The Estate Planning Profile is designed to help focus your thoughts on the estate planning process. It is also a personal survey to help us gather important facts. If you choose, you may review these documents and bring them with you to your appointment.

The purpose of the initial consultation appointment is to review your estate planning needs and goals, answer any questions you have, and confirm which type of estate plan best meets your needs.

During our initial consultation, some of the things that we will discuss will include the potential cost of probate and estate tax, various methods of reducing costs, and how to accomplish your estate planning goals. In most cases, at the conclusion of the initial consultation, we will be able to provide you with a firm fee. If we are not able to provide you with a firm fee after the first meeting, your will be provided with that fee quote before the estate planning process starts.

Your Estate Planning Consultation

This is not an appointment you should worry about. In fact, you need to bring very little with you for this first appointment. If you can, bring copies of any of your existing estate planning documents (such as prior wills or trusts, if you have any), a simple list of what you own, and the people that you want to either give things to or will help manage your estate when you can’t do it.

Bringing this information will help us to know what we’re dealing with so that the initial estate planning appointment can be more productive. Of course, if you just want us to review and discuss your situation, we simply need your presence. Don’t delay starting this process just because you can’t locate some documents. We will let you know exactly what we need once we have sat down and discussed your estate planning needs. Below is a link to our questionnaire that will help us get the process started for you.

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