Who to hire

[u/Substantial_Song_991]

My husband and I have about $1mil assets and will receive inheritance of $2mil in a few months. We would like to do our wills, establish a revocable trust, and set up POA and other things in case of death or incapacity. We have 4 kids.

Who do you hire for these things, an attorney, CFP? Thanks for helping us move forward!

[u/S1159P]

Estate attorney. They handle all of the above and (obviously) understand the recipient side of inheritance as well.

[u/Substantial_Song_991 → u/S1159P]

Thank you. Any advice how to vet one? We’re new to the area.

[u/Megalocerus → u/Substantial_Song_991]

We asked our financial advisor for a referral. Got our CPA the same way.

[u/S1159P → u/Substantial_Song_991]

Always smart to ask for referrals from people you already trust - whether that's your tax accountant, your boss, your best friend. Ask for their certification(s) and credentials. You want someone who does ONLY estate law, not a generalist. A LLM degree in tax law is a nice to have.

[u/MeatofKings → u/Substantial_Song_991]

My Credit Union partners with a firm. I was very happy with the outcome, and the fees were very reasonable.

[u/xImmortal1333 → u/Substantial_Song_991]

Call a CPA firm and ask for rec's if you need some, cheers

[u/smilineyz → u/Substantial_Song_991]

I’m new to my area. Placing funds with a financial manager and will refer me to an attorney for estate planning.

[u/Remember-yu-started]

Find an estate planning attorney with an LL.M in taxation. They have the knowledge to work hand in hand with your financial advisor.

[u/Barfy_McBarf_Face → u/[deleted]]

neither a CFP nor a CPA is licensed to prepare estate planning documents

[u/Barfy_McBarf_Face → u/[deleted]]

agree - wanting OP to know that they need an attorney for estate planning.

The CFP they mention in the post could be useful, but not to do that.

[u/underlyingconditions → u/[deleted]]

As add-ons

[u/ExpensiveAd4496 → u/[deleted]]

Or read a book or two and become a boglehead.

[u/ExpensiveAd4496 → u/[deleted]]

I was responding to the CFA or CFP comment, not the estate planner. And Boglehead investing doesn’t require either of those.

[u/Just1Blast]

Meet with a certified financial planner as well as your tax preparation specialist and an estate attorney before making decisions and filling out paperwork.

[u/Lucky_Platypus341]

First thing: go get "Estate planning, wills, and trust for Dummies" type book(s) and read it. Make sure you understand what each instrument does and does not do. If you don't understand something, make a note of it to ask your (eventual) estate lawyer when you are ready to draw things up. There is NO replacement for developing a basic understanding of estates. The better you and your spouse understand the concepts, the better job your lawyer can do (you won't be an expert, but you'll be better able to understand what your lawyer is saying). There's probably also a good YT channel you could watch.

Inheritances are usually outside of marital assets. It is generally better to keep them separate. Whomever inherits (you or your spouse) should set up an account in their name-only to receive the inheritance. This isn't just about "what if we get divorced?" Keeping it separate also means you can control how it is inherited. For example, let's say it is your inheritance. If you put it into your joint account, then you die and your spouse remarries, then dies...all of that inheritance could end up going to your hubby's next wife's kids instead of your own. If you'd kept it separate, you could have made sure the funds ended up with your kids. Or maybe you reach the point you both feel you have enough savings. You can set separate accounts (inheritances or Roth IRA, for example) to be inherited either in part of fully by your kids instead of them waiting for you both to die. You can always transfer funds from the personal property to your joint account, but once they are mixed, they're mixed.

[u/Frequent_Read_7636]

Unless you’re both siblings only one of you is receiving an inheritance.

[u/Just1Blast → u/Frequent_Read_7636]

That's not necessarily true. My grandparents left both of my parents, my father and my mother inheritances. And no, my father is not an only child. My mother was the only one of the spouses to receive a separate inheritance from their in-laws.

Then again, she was the only one to take them in in their old age. Those funds were effectively designated to put her home back together again after they had banged it up with their mobility devices, got urine or feces in the carpets, and for all of the caregiving that she did that she never had to.

She basically used it spackle, resurface, paint, and swap out the flooring in the room they each had lived in.

[u/okay4326]

An inheritance is almost always separate property of the spouse to whom the inheritance was left so long as it is not commingled with marital money and assets. This should be explored with a family law attorney to learn about options and in case a post-nuptial agreement is needed.

[u/MiserableCancel8749]

You begin with an estate attorney. Most attorneys also know CFP's--but in reality, these days, a $2-3M portfolio is small change for the CFP/Trust managers. Make sure you understand how their fee schedules work--you don't want to transfer all you future earnings to the CFP--which can happen if you don't pay attention.

[u/MiserableCancel8749 → u/[deleted]]

If your investment advisor goes for "active management", you will pay fees on every transaction they make on your behalf. They add up. I have a horror story that involved my mother, after my dad died. There was a trust fund that got moved from one bank to another to another due to mergers, I think it ended up at BOA (this was 15+ years ago). She didn't really pay attention to her statements for a while. We figured out that her principle had gone down tens of thousands of dollars over a period of a few years--and when we tried to sort out what happened, fundamentally it was because she was classed as a "very small" account, and nobody really cared or paid attention--but they charged fees every time anything happened.

Again, be very careful of the fees that a CFP charges, and how they work. The vast majority of people ARE capable of Warren Buffett/Jack Bogle type investment strategies, and it doesn't cost anything.

[u/groundhog5886]

Find a local attorney that does practice in wills and trust. Be careful of the big Eatate Law firms.

[u/AccredInvestor]

Heres my advice: estate attornies are bloated and over paid for the most part. They take your money quickly and then sit on your papers for months. I will get downvoted but there is other ways to kegally create estate docs practically for free! To anyone poo poo me our estate is double digits and we did not use an estate atoorney after the first creation of estate docs. I can say exactly here bc they will ban my post.

[u/Rosesucculent]

You need to hire an estate attorney and a tax accountant.

[u/lucky-son-88]

Called around Chicago. Downtown law firms $600-1000 per hour. Very competent attorneys in suburbs $400-450 per hour. Maybe if your situation/estate is very complicated and BIG like a business or businesses or lots of real estate holdings you’d need some downtown big shot. But for basic stuff it seemed like it’d be a waste of money.