Estate Planning Checklist

The Short Answer

An estate planning checklist is a file, not a slogan. You need papers that work while you are alive, in a hospital, and after death. A last will is one line on that list. It is not the list. Valor maps the list to three attorney-prepared services: estate planning, living trust formation, and living wills.

Skip life-coaching extras and blank national PDFs. Check the nine items below against what you already signed. Then hire the missing paper, not a second kit that repeats the first.

The Nine Items

1. 1

   Last will

   Name heirs, an executor, and a guardian if you have a minor. A will does not skip probate on property still in your name. Details: estate planning vs a will.

2. 2

   Pour-over will if you have a trust

   Catch leftovers that never got retitled. Leftovers still go through probate. See what is a pour-over will.

3. 3

   Funded living trust (if the house is the probate problem)

   Signing the trust is not funding. The deed has to name the trustee. How to fund a living trust.

4. 4

   Living will

   Treatment list if you cannot speak. Not a last will. What is a living will.

5. 5

   Healthcare agent (proxy or surrogate)

   A person who can talk to doctors when the list runs out. Often on the same state packet as the living will. Living will vs power of attorney.

6. 6

   Financial power of attorney

   Pays bills if you cannot. Does not set a code status. Does not move the house by itself.

7. 7

   Beneficiary designations

   Retirement accounts and life insurance often ignore the will. Update the forms. An old spouse on the form still takes the account.

8. 8

   IRS and title facts

   Unfiled returns, a federal tax lien, or a house still in a dead spouse’s name change the plan. A revocable trust does not erase a lien. See tax on a revocable living trust.

9. 9

   Copies in the chart

   Give the living will and agent paper to the doctor and the agent. A locked original in a safe is not on the night-shift clipboard.

If you only have a house and no minor children, items 3, 4, and 5 often matter more than a long will kit. If you only care about the hospital this month, start at 4 and 5. Who needs a trust instead of a will is the house test, not a net-worth cutoff.

What This List Is Not

• A free national living-will PDF. State statutes write the form. See why a downloaded living will PDF fails.
• An irrevocable Medicaid trust. Different product. Revocable vs irrevocable living trust.
• A DNR or POLST. Those are clinician orders for EMS. Ask your doctor.
• A funeral script. Useful to tell family. It is not a title document.

Marisol’s Half-Done File

Marisol prints a will, names her son Diego, and stops. The house is still in her name. There is no living will. After a stroke she cannot speak. Diego cannot show a will to change a ventilator. After she dies, the house waits for probate anyway.

A checklist would have flagged items 3, 4, and 5 as empty. The will was not wasted. It was incomplete.

What to Do First

If a surgery is next month, finish the living will and the agent paper first. If the only asset is a house and adult children who already fight, fund the trust. If you have a minor, do not skip the will’s guardian clause for a trust brochure.

You do not have to buy every paper the same week. You do have to stop calling one downloaded will “the estate plan.”

How Valor Helps

The consult is the checklist with an attorney. We mark what you already have. We quote the missing papers before you hire. We prepare the state forms. We do not mail a blank kit and call it done.

If IRS debt sits on the house, say that. Tax relief and the estate file can live in the same client record. They are still two jobs. The trust does not settle the IRS bill.