Estate Planning for Singles

Estate Planning Attorney for Singles in Orland Park, Illinois

Planning by Life Stages with our Orland Park Attorney, serving Southwest Suburbs of Chicago

If you are single, then you are in good company. According to the most recent U.S. Census, more than half of all adult Americans are single, too. Whether you are 18 or 118, one thing that singles share with their married counterparts is the need for essential estate planning.

Even if you do not have two dimes to rub together, you are your estate. Did you know the law requires every adult American to make his or her own personal, financial and health care decisions? As a single person, it is all the more important to consider who will be making these decisions for you in the event that you are legally incapacitated. It is a grim consideration, but no one is immune to serious injury or illness.

Unless a single person legally appoints a decision-maker in advance through proper estate planning, a probate judge will select instead. The probate court process to accomplish this task is expensive (it employs at least three attorneys), discloses your private personal and financial information to the public record, and is a real hassle for your loved ones.

In the absence of proper estate planning, your assets may be distributed after death based on “one-size-fits-all” state laws written for people who do not have their own estate plan. This impersonal estate plan written by state lawmakers may not reflect your own unique circumstances and objectives for your loved ones and assets.

Fortunately, we provide estate planning for singles to help avoid the probate and replace impersonal, state-written, one-size-fits-all estate plan with one designed together for unique circumstances and objectives. Our Orland Park estate planning law firm helps singles coordinate beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement plans, too, avoiding unpleasant, unintended consequences. 

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