Guardianship Wills - Protection for Your Minor Children

Caring for children is often a significant undertaking, one requiring lots of patience, work, and love. Very few people will ever love your children the same as you do, making you the best candidate to raise them.

However, what happens to your children in the event you pass away unexpectedly? While it is not common for both parents to pass away, it does happen, including in situations such as car accidents. You can have peace of mind though that you have taken care of things for your children in the event of any such unforeseen circumstances by creating a Guardianship Will for your children.

A Guardianship Will can establish your preferences for who will be the guardians for your minor children. Without a guardianship designation in place, a judge will end up deciding where to send your children. While you love your brothers, sisters, or parents, you also know that not all of them would be the best suited for taking and caring for your children.

A Guardianship Will can also direct that a trust be established to hold all of the funds from your assets, so that the money there is used to pay for your children's care. If there are funds left by the time they reach adulthood, you can direct that such funds be dispersed for marriage, college, or other events, or dispersed to them directly at a given age.

The main drawback to a will, of course, is that wills have to be probated, meaning that they have to be filed in court and taken before a probate judge. This will likely incur some costs, but probate in Utah is a fairly straightforward and efficient process.

While trusts are a common tool to avoid probate, a trust cannot pass guardianship of a minor child. In other words, if you have a trust and pass away with minor children, you will still have to file in court for their guardianship to be properly established. Since probate will have to happen anyways, the Guardianship Will simply directs that a trust be established for the children while the probate is open.

The Guardianship Will allows you, in effect, to place some legal "insurance" in place for your children. The Guardianship Will is simple to establish and set up, and is a low cost legal service, cheaper even than a new smart phone. You do not have to know every detail of how all of your property will pass, and can save the trust formation and more formal estate planning for a later time when your children are grown and you have more of an idea of what your estate planning needs will be.

The Guardianship Will is a great solution for estate planning during the time that you have minor children at home. While the goal is a long and prosperous life, having a backup plan in place will bring peace of mind and stability to you and your children.

Contact Hepworth Law today at (801) 550-7620 to discuss creating a Guardianship Will for your minor children.

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This article is not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by this posting. This information is general in nature and may not apply to your specific situation. You should contact an attorney and discuss your specific situation and needs, as the above information may not provide the legal results you need in your situation. This is an advertisement for legal services provided by Hepworth Law, LLC, and is only general information about situations in the State of Utah.