You have an Oklahoma Estate Plan whether you created it or not . . .

The State of Oklahoma has you taken care of.  

Whether you have created a will, trust, or even thought about creating one, there are plans for about what happens to your property when you die. 

An estate plan is a way to set out the who, what, when, where, and how:

• Your property will be transferred upon your death;
• The recipients of your property and in what amounts;
• The administrator of your estate and the division of your personal property;
• The person or persons who will be the guardians of your minor children, and what type of resources the guardians will have;
• Your caretaker if you become incapacitated and a power of attorney granting the authority to handle your affairs.

From where does this sophisticated Oklahoma estate plan come?  The statutes of the State of Oklahoma provide it.  Within the thousands of words contained in the Oklahoma Statutes, there are rules about what happens to what you have, and who takes care of you and your children upon your death.  These laws set a rigid formula and make no exceptions for unusual or special needs.  Without a will or trust in place, your estate will be administered by the court, according to these statutes.  If this happens, the cost to your estate could be greater than if you have an estate plan.

Does this sound good? If not, there is an alternative: plan your own estate, determine who takes care of your family and who takes care of you, yourself. Talk to an attorney to find out how to plan your own estate (whether it is small, medium, or large), and to draft documents that fit you and you and your family’s unique needs – not the convenient one size fits all solution provided by the statutes.

In the process, you are taking care of your family the way you know is best. Feel free to contact me (sjr@shawnjroberts.com) if you have any questions or if would like to discuss planning your estate.

Oklahoma Estate Planning

Posted by Shawn Roberts

On this blog, I write about and try to answer practical Oklahoma legal questions. My focus and most experience is in estate planning and business issues including Oklahoma non-compete law. I make a living as an attorney in the law firm I founded, Shawn J. Roberts, P.C. in Oklahoma City. I live in Edmond with my wife Amy and my two children, Sam (19) and David (11). We live precisely in the path of where the "wind comes sweeping down the plains."

2 comments

[…] orders the property distributed according to the Will. If there is no Will, then the court uses the Oklahoma intestate statutes. Subscribe to this author's posts feed via RSS Read more from Blogposts, Oklahoma Estate […]

[…] government will take all of my assets. FACT: If you die without a will or trust, it is called “intestate”, meaning the state will determine how to dispose of your assets. In Oklahoma, the state provides […]