Should you prepare a will before giving birth?

Stay tuned and let's talk about that on today's video.

Hi, you know who I am Pantea Fozouni with Palm Desert Law Group. Today, I want to do something a little bit different. I want to sort of pull the veil back and talk a little bit more personally and talk about Should you prepare a will before giving birth?

This is a subject that is difficult and it's uncomfortable but it's something that's very real for even my, my husband and I have right now. We're planning on building our family expanding our family as you may or may not know.

Preparing for different situations

I've already got a beautiful, 10-year-old stepdaughter Sophia, who pops up and things all of the time. She is the absolute light of my life. We did our estate planning initially.

It was solely focused on her, but now that we're planning on expanding our own family this is a subject that we're thinking about yet again because as we bring new life into the world, it's critical to think about who would be raising this new child if something happened to my husband and to me.

Something happens to my husband right now, our daughter ,she's going to her mom. There is a set situation place.

Heaven forbid something happens to her mom, who is awesome, she's coming, she's with us. There is a little bit more peace of mind of knowing that you know, our daughter Sophia is going to be okay no matter what.

But with Our baby, it's different, because something could happen to my husband and I at the same time so it's really really important to think about and think through the consequences of not having a plan in place as well as making sure we have the right plan in place.

Why is it important to have a will?

It's not about assets. It's not asset protection. It's not about avoiding probate. Even if you don't have any assets at all, It's really important to have a will because that is a place where you can name legal guardians for your kids so that you have the power to say who you want raising your kids if something happens to you.

Guess what? If you don't list anyone in there at all, which over 69 percent of parents don't do (you don't want to be within that category) if you don't do that then if something happens to you and your partner, it's up to a complete stranger, a judge to decide who is going to end up raising your kids.

The judge is going to look at the available options in front of him or her and he or she is going to do the best that they can to pick who they think would be the best person to raise the kids, based off of what submitted to them alone.

But those applications that are there, they don't talk about personal, political beliefs and religious values. It doesn't capture their own personal information and about their relationships with their kids, with their partners with their family.

There's so much that isn't it, doesn't make it onto those applications and so judge really isn't the best person to pick who's going to be right for raising your kids.

You're the best person for making decisions!

And only you!

So I know that the topic of Should you prepare a will before giving birth is a super uncomfortable topic to think about but it's also really empowering because you can make sure that your kids are raised by the people that you would want with the values that you would want, as opposed to you know, they're totally different value sets from from what you would like.

Not only is it important to name legal guardians, like within your will, it's important to name guardians outside of your will as well, and the reason for that is that it will only become effective if you die.

If you haven't died, but you're merely incapacitated, then that will doesn't come into play and so we are back in that same situation where a judge, again a stranger, would be the person picking who would be taking care of your kids in that interim period until your incapacity ended and who knows how long that could be.

It could be short time. It could be a long time.

So it's really also important to name long-term guardians within your will for sure, but also outside of your will.

This is one of those topics that is so important that we actually offer a free resource for all parents where they can go ahead and name short term and long term guardians for free to make sure that they're their kids and their loved ones are protected no matter what.

So even though this is one of those things that's really uncomfortable to think about, once you do once you start talking to your partner about it, you're going to feel so much better,once you do make those decisions because you're going to have that peace of mind of knowing that your kids are going to be protected no matter what.

If this is something you would like some help to talk through, I'm more than happy to talk with you and your partner to work through these different issues and to make sure that you have the right people named to take care of your kids if heaven forbid anything happens to you and your partner.

Again, my name is Pantea Fozouni, with Palm Desert Law Group.

This article is a service of Pantea I. Fozouni, Family Business Lawyer®.

The Palm Desert Law Group specializes Trust Administration, Business Law and Planning for Parents of Minor Children.

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