• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Duffy Law Office, PLLC

Helping Families Preserve Their Wealth

  • Home
  • Our Firm
    • About Our Firm
    • About The American Academy
    • Advantages of Working With Our Firm
    • Attorney and Staff Profiles
    • Speaker Connection
  • Services
    • Asset Protection & Business Planning
    • Elder Law & Medicaid Services
    • Estate and Gift Tax Figures
    • Estate Planning Services
    • Family-Owned Businesses & Farms
    • Financial Planning Assistance
    • Incapacity Planning
    • IRA & Retirement Planning
    • LGBTQ Estate Planning
    • SECURE Act
    • Special Needs Planning
    • Trust Administration & Probate
  • Reports
    • Advanced Estate Planning
    • Basic Estate Planning
    • Estate Planning For Niches
    • Trust Administration
  • Resources
    • Client Resources
    • Consumer Resources
    • Published Books
  • BLOG
  • Contact Us
  • (563) 445-7400
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Don’t Overrule Your Estate Plan

Dennis D. Duffy · Jun 8, 2012 ·

Once you have an estate plan, it’s important that you do not do anything to inadvertently overrule that plan. If you have taken the time to make a careful estate plan, you need to make sure that you do not sign any documents later that detract from that plan. People often get into trouble with this by signing something given to them by a financial institution.

In a typical scenario, an elderly person will put a child’s name on bank accounts as a way of allowing that child to handle the day to day finances for the parent. Whenever you make changes to your bank account, the bank hands you long legal documents to sign, which very few people actually read. By default what happens in that case is that the parent has just made that bank account automatically go to the child when the parent passes away. This creates a problem if you have more than one child and they were all supposed to receive an equal inheritance.

Before signing any financial documents make sure that they do not conflict with the goals in your estate plan. A better way to handle the above example would have been for the parent to get a General Durable Power of Attorney instead of a joint bank account. Talk to your estate planning attorney about how to avoid overruling your own estate plan.

We appreciate you following us and value your comments and input. Please provide your thoughts by using the comments section on our blog page.

You Can Also Find Us Online:Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn

Thanks again.

Dennis D. Duffy

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Dennis D. Duffy
Latest posts by Dennis D. Duffy (see all)
  • Attorneys Want to Help - December 14, 2016
  • Trusts and the Estate Tax - December 14, 2016
  • What Is a Third Party Special Needs Trust? - December 14, 2016

Estate Planning, Power of Attorney Estate Planning, estate planning documents, Financial Power of Attorney

Blog Subscription

Where we are

Duffy Law Office, PLLC
1840 E 54th St
Davenport, IA 52807
United States (US)
Phone: (563) 445-7400

Opening hours

Monday8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Tuesday8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Wednesday8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Thursday8:30 AM - 4:30 PM

Map

duffy_hmpg_map.png

© 2023 · American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc. | Disclaimer | Privacy Policy | Sitemap | Contact Us