Why should I care about estate planning?

“A question I don’t have that often, luckily, but that still comes up, is a client asking that general question of, ‘Why do I even care about estate planning?’ I’ve done this long enough to where I’m pretty direct with my clients, and I say, “Well, I can promise you two things if you don’t care. You don’t have to. From the back end, you will have attorneys get paid a lot of money, and you will have your family members, b. Best case scenario, be incredibly stressed, w. Worst case scenario, hate each other.” Estate planning is incredibly important because it gives you control over what you want, control over who is in charge, in control of who you want to receive things. Those are super important, and a lot of people don’t realize. They say, ‘Wwell, it’ll take care of itself.’ Well, it won’t.  A court can’t determine that. No judge knows who you would’ve appointed or who you wanted to receive, what? You’re the only person that can do that, so now’s the time to take care of that. You want to be in charge to say, “I want these people to handle things for me and these people or charitable beneficiaries, whoever it may be, those that you love or those that you care about to receive the things that you’ve worked hard for. So, we’ll be happy to help you out to think through those things, but again, that’s the important question you want to consider.”