How to Pick a Legal Guardian for Your Kids

Burlington estate planning attorneys can provide you with assistance with the process of planning ahead in case something happens to you. Making an advanced plan for incapacity or for your passing is very important for people of all ages, not just for seniors, as there is no guarantee that you will stay healthy and live a long life. This can be especially important for parents of young children. While you may not want to think about what would happen if you are not able to raise your kids until adulthood, you need to make a plan for what will happen to your children if tragedy occurs. 

Unsworth LaPlante, PLLC can assist you in making smart plans to ensure that your children will be provided for even if something happens to you. We can guide you through the steps that you need to take to make an incapacity plan and a legacy plan if you are the parent of young children and we can help you to use the right legal tools to provide for and protect your kids no matter what the future holds. You should give us a call as soon as possible for assistance and advice.

How to Pick a Legal Guardian for Your Children

When selecting a legal guardian for your children, one of the first things to decide is whether you want a separate physical and legal guardian or whether you want to put the same person in charge of providing care for your son or daughter and managing an inheritance that you provide.

You can take advanced estate planning steps to ensure your child’s inheritance is protected and used for appropriate purposes — such as creating a trust and naming someone you can count on to serve as the trustee — and taking these steps can provide you with much more control over what happens to assets you leave to your child. What you don’t want to do is to just directly leave money to a child in your will, as this could result in the court appointing a guardian to manage those funds.

You will also need to think about who you can count on to raise your child in a way that you believe is right if something happens and you cannot be there for your son or daughter through adulthood. You should talk with any person who you are considering selecting as the guardian for your child to make sure they are able to actually assume this responsibility and wiling to do so.  Naming a backup guardian is also smart because if the person who you had initially selected is not able to raise the children after all, you don’t want your child to end up in the middle of a custody battle or to end up with someone who you do not think will do the best job raising your son or daughter.

As you think about who to name as guardian, consider who you feel confident would raise your child in a way that you would approve of. You may also want to think about selecting a guardian young enough that it is very likely the guardian will live until your child reaches adulthood, because if something happens to the guardian you have selected for your kids, this can create serious problems that impact a child’s outlook on the future.

Getting Help from Burlington Estate Planning Attorneys

Burlington estate planning attorneys at Unsworth LaPlante, PLLC can guide you through the process of naming a guardian for your children and can help you to determine the key facts that you will need to consider when selecting the right person to care for your kids if you are not able to raise them until they are adults. We can also help you to make plans to provide financially for your children even if you aren’t able to be there for them personally.

To find out more about how our legal team helps parents to plan for the future, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at (802) 879-7133 or contact us online at any time to talk to a compassionate and knowledgeable member of our legal team about the creation of your personalized plan.