Estate Planning

The 8 Life Stages of Estate Planning

By Hull & Hull LLP

As we are in the beginning of a new year, a quote from one of my favourite poets, T.S. Eliot, comes to mind:  'For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.'  

I recently came across an article entitled "The 8 Life Stages of Estate Planning", authored by G.M. Filisko.  In his article, Mr. Filisko points out the obvious - during our life we will go through different phases and our estate plans should reflect these changes. Mr. Filisko lists the following stages to consider regardless of the phase one may be currently in:

1.      Young, single and carefree
2.      Single, but committed
3.      We're Engaged
4.      Just Married
5.      The Joys of Parenting
6.      Divorce (if unfortunately applicable)
7.      The Middle Ages
8.      The Golden Years

Regardless of where one may fall in this spectrum, it is never to late to get started.

Since making New Year's resolutions seems to be the theme around this time of the year, let's make a resolution to be more organized this year and spend some time considering our estate plans.

Thank you for reading.

Rick Bickhram

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on January 12, 2010 (boomark / email).