Stephen Waltar from Legacy Estate Planning in Bellvue, WA discusses the importance of estate planning. People think because we’re a community property state that they don’t need to plan, they own things, they think everything automatically goes to your spouse, but then they start adding their daughter to their bank account, or their son to their brokerage account, and all of a sudden there are these messes. People get caught up with title mistakes all the time. Let’s say the son gets in a car accident and gets sued. Mom and dad can lose their account to their son’s creditors. It’s the trouble with joint tenancy. If you try to do estate planning thinking you don’t need a will or trust or an attorney, deciding that you’ll just add your son to this account, then you’re adding his creditors or perhaps later his divorcing spouse, which could threaten these assets.
