Estate & Legacy Planning
A will or trust tells the world who inherits. It doesn't tell you whether your accounts are titled to match, whether your beneficiary forms agree with your documents, or what your spouse will live on if you're gone first. That's the part of an estate plan that quietly breaks — and it's the part we work on, alongside your estate attorney.
Estate & Legacy Check
Who Does What
The Gap
Estate attorneys draft documents. That's their job, and the good ones do it well. But once the documents are signed, nobody is responsible for checking that the rest of your financial life lines up with them. Retirement accounts, annuities and life insurance pass by beneficiary form, not by your will. A trust only controls what has actually been put into it. And the surviving spouse's income often falls further than anyone planned for.
Where Plans Quietly Break
A former spouse. A parent who has passed. A child who is now an adult with a life of their own. Forms signed years ago keep controlling the account until someone changes them.
The documents get signed, but the accounts are never retitled. When it matters, the trust may hold very little, and the assets can end up going through probate anyway.
When the first spouse dies, a pension can shrink or end, and one Social Security check replaces two. The household's bills don't fall by half.
Heirs who inherit a traditional IRA usually face a ten-year clock and ordinary income tax on every dollar. A large balance can push them up a bracket or two.
The dollars you intend to pass on and the dollars you need to live on often sit in the same account. Separating them is a design decision, not an afterthought.
Assets that pass by beneficiary designation or contract can generally avoid probate. Others can't. Knowing which is which before it matters is the point.
Where We Fit
We're not a law firm and we don't pretend to be one. Here's the honest line between the two.
What The Income Standard Does
What We Leave to Others
How It Works
It's the same complimentary Review we do for every household. We start with your numbers and your documents, and we end with a plain answer on where the plan holds and where it doesn't. Three things carry the most weight.
Schedule My ReviewNext Step
The Review takes about 30 minutes. If you have your estate documents handy, bring them, but nothing is required up front. It's best suited to households with roughly $500,000 or more in investable assets, and we'll tell you plainly if we're not the right fit.
No cost. No obligation. Just a straight answer.
This page is educational and is not legal, tax or investment advice. The Income Standard is not a law firm and does not prepare wills, trusts or other legal documents; those should be prepared by a licensed attorney. Estate and tax rules vary by state and change over time, so talk with your attorney and tax professional about your own situation.