The kind of results that we achieve happen through experience, attention to detail, and a tailored approach to each family. Washington Elder Law has developed a system for your family that makes it as easy as possible to get through the process for all the
services we provide.
Workshops: Washington Elder Law offers two workshops: (1) Estate Planning, Tax Reduction, and Asset Protection and (2) Accessing Medicaid Benefits. The purpose of a workshop is to educate our clients on how to achieve their goals.
Initial Meeting or Vision Meeting: Once we have received your asset inventory and valuation, we will invite you to a Vision Meeting during which we will listen to your goals, and we will create a plan to achieve your goals. The purpose of this meeting is to learn about your goals for the distribution of your assets, your family, and your estate plan. During this meeting we will discuss what will be required to protect your assets. We will need a list of family members and beneficiaries of your estate with the correct names and addresses of the people you wish to protect. We will also need an inventory and valuation of all the assets that you wish to protect.
Post Vision Meeting: The purpose of this meeting is to review information from the workshop and/or vision meeting and to further clarify all client personal and financial information to assemble documents for the design meeting. If you authorize Washington Elder Law to prepare the documents that will protect your assets, we charge half down to prepare your documents. Your balance is due at the signing meeting.
Design Meeting: At the Design Meeting we will ask strategic questions to ensure that we create an estate plan that is highly customized to your personal needs, family needs, and financial goals. We will work with you to implement all of the issues/concerns discussed at the workshop, vision meeting and post-vision meeting. We will ask questions to verify that we have spelled all the names correctly, we will prepare a personal care plan, and we will verify the roles of each person involved in your estate plan. At the end of the Design Meeting, we will schedule a Document Review meeting.
Document Review Meeting: During the Document Review Meeting we will show you how the language in the documents will allow you to meet your goals of protecting assets and reducing taxes.
Signing Meeting: After the document review meeting, we will schedule your Signing meeting. The people who have a role in your estate plan will be able to sign either in person or by using DocuSign. After the signing meeting, we will schedule a Funding Meeting.
Funding Meeting: During the Funding Meeting, we will achieve your plan goals to protect your assets. We will create an Asset Table and with your designated beneficiaries. We will discuss which bank and brokerage accounts to open, how to designate your beneficiaries on those accounts, how to minimize taxes on Inherited Retirement Accounts, how to minimize the Washington State Estate Tax, how to optimize Tax Basis Step up to reduce capital gains tax on sale of assets by beneficiaries. If requested, we will meet with your Certified Public Accountant or Tax Advisor to review your plan. We will also meet with your Financial Advisors with the goal of opening accounts for the trusts, updating account beneficiary designations and preserving your assets according to your goals. If your goal is to access Medicaid Benefits, we will complete the Medicaid Spenddown plan and follow-up and apply for Medicaid Benefits on your behalf. If necessary, we will also schedule a funding confirmation meeting so that we can review whether your funding plan has been completed and that all recommended transfers into the trust have meet made. Unless your Trust funding is completed, you may lose the benefits that our Trusts are designed to provide for you.
Family Meeting: After the funding meeting, if requested, we will schedule a meeting with family members to discuss how your plan should be administered to meet your goals.
