Estate planning as a Texas farm or ranch owner is best when done as an ongoing practice. The complexity of land ownership is one that brings confusion when successors, inheritors or beneficiaries aren’t named. Leaving the hard work you invested left to chance as you pass can lead to financial repercussions. Only estate planning ensures that your assets, which include the property, are accounted for when you’re gone.
Protects assets
Protecting assets from debt and even taxes starts with first registering your assets properly. When the courts manage your assets according to your will, it is the result of having those details down in writing. Estate planning begins with bringing your assets together and then tallying up their values. The documents and accounts that are then created organize your estate as if it were a financial portfolio.
Hedges the risks
Liquidity measures how well value, be it stocks or bonds, is converted into cash. Farmland and the tools you use are illiquid assets however. They’re difficult to move, being unlikely to sell within an instant. Estate planning, as a hedge, prepares your estate to function without immediate buyers when you’re gone.
Limiting ownership
Finalizing your estate ensures that it and its related assets only go to the people you name. When there are children, many landowners do themselves a disservice by leaving their families to argue or dispute about their belongings.
Regarding your land, you can specify who gets what, to what extent and on which conditions. For example, you can grant a beneficiary land in through a trust on the condition that they first rehabilitate your livestock back to health.
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