Estate Planning for Blended Families Part 1

In this Elder Law Minute, Kaye Dent explains how DCEL can help you plan accordingly if you have a blended family.
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Dent Coulson Elder Law is dedicated to providing families in the St. Louis area with their Elder Law needs. Our practice areas include Asset Preservation Planning, Veterans Benefits, Medicaid Eligibility, Alzheimer's Planning, Special Needs Planning, Estate Planning and more. We understand the financial challenges you may face as you and your loved ones grow older.
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Video Transcript:
Hi, I'm Kaye DeSelms Dent with Dent Coulson Elder Law, here with an Elder Law Minute for you. These videos are intended to educate you about the Elder Care Journey, which begins earlier in life than you might think. We hope that you find them useful, and if you have further questions, please call us at Dent Coulson Elder Law.
This time, we're going to be talking about estate planning for blended families, and I'm going to do that in four parts. The first part is going to be the general overview and discussion of some of the pitfalls. in a second marriage, it's very important to consider your estate planning from the perspective that the rules that applied in your first marriage don't apply here. In Illinois, you cannot disinherit a spouse using a will, because the spouse has the right to take against the will, which means they could get half of your estate, whether that's really what should happen or not.
So, one of the first things you should do in a second marriage is to get a good prenuptial agreement and make certain that your estate planning attorney understands it and is incorporating it into your estate plan, ideally to protect everyone involved, including both spouses and the children of each spouse, if any.
You should use a trust-based plan, and that means that each spouse should probably have their own revocable living trust. Now, of course, any of these decisions or strategies are fact-specific and should be discussed with a qualified estate planning attorney. That's something that we're happy to help with here at Dent Coulson Elder Law.
Stay tuned for parts two, three, and four of planning for blended families.