Empowered Legacy Planning is only one of a few Arizona estate planning law firms that offers a trust funding and maintenance program for a simple annual fee. Our maintenance program is a key part of our commitment to helping you create and maintain an estate plan that will meet your goals.

It is important to keep your estate plan up to date. From time to time, your estate planning documents will need to be modified to reflect changes in your family or financial situation. We recommend that you review both your trust as well as your personal net worth on a yearly basis to determine whether any modifications are warranted. Additionally, changes in the law may arise that can affect your estate plan.

For these reasons, we have developed the Empowered Legacy Planning (“ELP”) Maintenance Program, designed to eliminate these problems as well as to reduce the total overall cost of your estate planning (including the original trust drafting fee and update fees, as well as trust settlement fees). The first step to establishing your trust maintenance program is ensuring that your trust has been properly funded.

In order for a Revocable Living Trust based plan to achieve your goals, it is absolutely imperative that during your lifetime you exercise care to ensure that you have transferred ownership of assets into your trust or have changed beneficiary designations to be consistent with your estate planning goals. This process is called trust funding. Because of the critical importance of proper trust funding, in order to enroll in the ELPMaintenance Program, our office will assist you in funding of the assets you identify to us. The cost of trust funding will be outlined in your agreement.

Enrollment in the ELP Maintenance Program gains you access to these services for a single annual fee:

TRUST FUNDING
Continued Funding Support: Our Firm will assist you in funding newly acquired assets during any time you are enrolled in the Trust Maintenance Program at no additional cost, with some exceptions outlined in your agreement.

Annual Funding Review: We will conduct an Annual Funding Review to verify that all newly acquired assets have been titled correctly. While there is no charge for the review, there may be fees associated with funding certain assets.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
We believe education is an important part of making sure your estate plan is up to date and meeting your current needs and goals. We provide a series of educational workshops regarding estate planning and related issues on a yearly basis for our clients.

DOCUMENT UPDATE SERVICES
Annual Client Meeting: We provide an opportunity for trust maintenance members to meet with an attorney for a private Annual Client Meeting each year to discuss and update your Annual Funding Review. At your Annual Client Meeting with your trust attorney, you will also be provided with updated financial and health care powers of attorney, HIPAA authorization, and Living Will.

Word Processing Amendments & Restatements: Word processing amendments to estate planning documents are included at no additional fee in the maintenance program. A word processing amendment addresses changes in your personal situation that do not involve significant additional legal counseling. These would be changes like updating names, minor changes in asset distribution, or changes in the order of trustees.