estate_planning_practice v1.0.0

name: "estate_planning_practice" description: > Run the paperwork side of an estate planning practice: intake summaries, plain English plan letters clients actually understand, probate inventories with every value sourced, beneficiary designation audits, and trust funding checklists. Use when opening or auditing an estate plan file, drafting a plan letter, building a probate inventory, checking beneficiary forms against a plan, or tracking whether a trust was actually funded.

Estate Planning Practice

Purpose

Most estate plans fail on paperwork, not on drafting. A trust that was never funded, a beneficiary form that still names a former spouse, and an inventory value with no source behind it will undo a well drafted plan. This skill runs the file work that prevents those failures: a clean intake summary, a plan letter in plain English, an inventory where every value points to a source, a beneficiary audit against the plan, and a funding checklist that only counts work with evidence.

This is practice operations, not legal advice for a specific family. State law controls execution formalities, probate deadlines, and document names. Verify the controlling state rule for each file and have a licensed attorney in that state review documents before signing.

Workflow

1. Intake summary, one page, facts separated from wishes

• Record the family, the assets, the debts, and the current documents in one intake summary. Keep three blocks separate: facts you verified, facts the client reported, and what the client wants.
• List every asset with how it is titled today, not how the client thinks it is titled. Title decides where an asset goes. A deed, a statement, or a title record beats memory.
• List the core document set and mark each one present, missing, or stale: will or pour over will, revocable trust if used, durable financial power of attorney, health care proxy or advance directive, living will where the state uses one, and HIPAA authorization. Names for the health documents vary by state.
• Flag incapacity planning on intake, not after. A financial power of attorney works only while the client is alive and it ends at death. A successor trustee only controls assets the trust owns.
• End intake with an open items list. Each item gets an owner and a date. Do not start a plan letter until the title facts are in.

2. Plan letter in plain English

• Write the plan letter so the client can repeat the plan back without help. One short paragraph per document. Say what the document does, who acts, and when they can act.
• Use this order: who is in charge if you cannot act, who is in charge after death, who gets what and in what form, what happens for minor or vulnerable beneficiaries, and what the client still has to do.
• Translate every term the first time it appears. Write executor as the person the court appoints to run the estate. Write pour over will as a will that moves leftover probate assets into the trust after death. It catches leftovers, it does not keep those assets out of probate.
• State the two warnings plainly in every letter. First, beneficiary forms control retirement accounts and life insurance, not the will. Second, a signed trust controls only the assets that were moved into it.
• Close with the client action list from step 5, in plain words, with dates. A letter with no action list invites an unfunded plan.
• Read the draft out loud. If a sentence needs a second read, rewrite it shorter.

Worked plan letter paragraph, fictional client:

> Your trust holds your house and your bank and brokerage accounts once the transfers in your checklist are confirmed. Your will is a safety net. Anything still in your name alone at death goes through probate first, then into your trust. Your IRA does not go into your trust. It goes to the people named on the custodian form, so that form has to match this letter. Right now it does not. See item 1 on your action list.

3. Probate inventory, every value sourced

• Build the inventory in assets/probate-inventory-template.csv. Columns: description, category, identifier or location, date of death value, value source, source detail, probate or nonprobate, notes.
• Value probate assets at fair market value as of the date of death. That is the price a willing buyer would pay a willing seller, not the purchase price and not a later sale price. Federal estate tax valuation rests on Internal Revenue Code section 2031. The alternate valuation date in section 2032 is six months after death and can be elected only when it lowers both the gross estate and the estate tax, on a timely filed return.
• Use a source that fits the asset. Real estate: a licensed appraisal as of the date of death. Bank accounts: the statement balance on the date of death. Listed stocks: priced from market data for the date of death, with the method written in source detail. Vehicles: a recognized valuation guide with year, make, model, mileage, and condition recorded. Household effects: group low value items with a good faith room by room list. List any high value item on its own with its own appraisal.
• Classify each row probate or nonprobate and say why in notes. Trust owned assets, joint assets with survivorship, and assets with a living beneficiary usually pass outside probate. An asset in the decedent name alone with no designation is a probate asset.
• Record the basis note as you value. Under section 1014, property acquired from a decedent generally takes a basis equal to its fair market value at death. The adjustment can step down as well as up. It does not apply to income in respect of a decedent, such as retirement accounts. A good inventory is the proof a beneficiary later needs for that basis, so keep appraisals and statements with the file.
• Find the filing deadline from the controlling state statute and the court that opened the estate, and calendar it with margin. Deadlines differ by state. Never work from a remembered number of days. If an asset is found later or a value changes, file a supplemental inventory under the state rule instead of editing the filed one quietly.
• Run scripts/audit_estate_file.py --inventory <file.csv> before filing. It totals the values and flags any row with no value source or no source detail. Fix every error it prints. No source, no filing.

Worked inventory, fictional estate, from examples/inventory-example.csv:

• Residence, licensed appraisal: $385,000.00
• Checking account, statement balance on date of death: $18,420.55
• Brokerage account, statement with date of death pricing: $127,340.20
• Vehicle, valuation guide with mileage and condition: $18,900.00
• Household effects, grouped room by room list: $7,500.00
• Total: $557,160.75, which is the total the audit script prints for that file

4. Beneficiary designation audit

• Audit in assets/beneficiary-audit-template.csv. One row per designation: asset, institution, account last four, primary beneficiary, contingent beneficiary, matches plan, last confirmed date, notes.
• Get the designation from the institution, in writing or from the account record. Do not audit from the client memory or from the will.
• Teach the rule in the file note because clients get it wrong: a beneficiary designation is a contract with the institution and it controls that asset even when the will says something else. The United States Supreme Court applied that principle in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff and in Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for the DuPont Savings and Investment Plan, where an unchanged form paid a former spouse. Life insurance, employer plans, IRAs, payable on death bank accounts, and transfer on death brokerage accounts all work this way.
• Check four failure points on every row. One, the primary name no longer matches the plan after marriage, divorce, a birth, or a death. Two, there is no contingent beneficiary, so a primary who dies first sends the asset to the estate and into probate. Three, a minor is named directly, with no trust or custodial arrangement behind the name. Four, per stirpes or per capita wording is missing or wrong, so a deceased child share goes to the wrong people.
• Flag retirement rows for tax review before anyone changes a name. Under the SECURE Act, most designated beneficiaries who are not eligible designated beneficiaries must empty an inherited retirement account by December 31 of the tenth year after the owner death. If the owner died on or after the required beginning date, annual distributions are also required in years one through nine under the final regulations issued in July 2024, effective for those annual payments from 2025. Eligible designated beneficiaries are the surviving spouse, a minor child of the owner, a disabled beneficiary, a chronically ill beneficiary, and a beneficiary not more than ten years younger than the owner. A minor child moves onto the ten year rule after reaching majority. Naming a trust as beneficiary adds see through trust rules, so route that choice to the drafting attorney and the tax adviser.
• Note the spousal consent trap on employer plans. On many employer retirement plans a spouse is the default beneficiary and naming anyone else needs the spouse signed consent. Confirm the plan rule instead of assuming the form was accepted.
• Run the audit script with --beneficiaries. A row where matches plan is not yes is an error, not a note. It stays open until the institution confirms the corrected form.

Worked audit finding, from examples/beneficiary-example.csv:

> Traditional IRA, custodian form last confirmed 2024-02-10, primary beneficiary is a former spouse, plan says children equally. The audit script flags this row as an error. The letter to the client says the form controls the account until the custodian confirms a new form, in those words, with the fix as action item one.

5. Trust funding checklist, evidence or it did not happen

• Track funding in assets/trust-funding-checklist-template.csv. Columns: asset, funding method, status, evidence, notes. Methods are deed, retitle, assignment, beneficiary, and left out with the reason documented.
• Fund by asset type. Real estate moves by a recorded deed, and the file needs the recorded copy. Bank and brokerage accounts move by retitling into the trustee name exactly as the trust names it, confirmed by the institution. Business interests move by a written assignment that follows the entity documents. Tangible property moves by a written assignment. Life insurance usually moves by beneficiary coordination, or by ownership transfer only on attorney advice.
• Do not retitle retirement accounts into a trust during the owner life. That is treated as a distribution problem, not a funding step. Coordinate the beneficiary form instead, with the tax review from step 4. The audit script flags any retirement row marked retitle as an error.
• Mark a row done only when evidence is in the file: a recorded deed, an institution confirmation letter, a new statement in the trust name, or a signed assignment. A form the client says was mailed is pending, not done.
• Sweep for new assets at every review. An account opened or a property bought after signing starts outside the trust until someone funds it. Note vehicles and small accounts the attorney chose to leave out, with the reason, so a later reviewer does not read a deliberate choice as a miss.
• Run the audit script with --funding. Clear pending rows before the file is closed, or carry them onto the client action list with dates.

6. Deadlines and tax flags, checked not remembered

• Check the current federal estate and gift exclusion on the IRS estate tax page for the year of death before writing any number in a letter or memo. For deaths in 2025 the basic exclusion was $13.99 million per person. For deaths in 2026 it is $15 million per person, with portability allowing a married couple up to twice the individual amount when the election is made. Amounts above the exclusion face a top federal rate of 40 percent. State estate and inheritance taxes sit on top of this with much lower thresholds in some states, so check the state too.
• Calendar Form 706 from the IRS instructions when a return is required or when portability is wanted. Form 706 is due nine months after the date of death. Form 4768 gives an automatic six month extension of time to file. It is not an extension of time to pay tax.
• Treat portability as a filing task, not an automatic benefit. The deceased spousal unused exclusion moves to a surviving spouse only when a complete Form 706 is filed on time. The IRS instructions describe late relief under Revenue Procedure 2022-32 for estates that were not required to file, on or before the fifth anniversary of the death, with the required statement at the top of the return. Missing that route can mean a far costlier ruling request.
• Keep tax flags separate from legal conclusions in the file. Write what was checked, the source, and the date checked. Route the decision to the attorney and tax adviser.

Output Contract

• Intake summary: one page, verified facts, reported facts, and wishes in separate blocks, title for each major asset, document set marked present, missing, or stale, and an open items list with owners and dates.
• Plan letter: plain English, one paragraph per document, both standing warnings stated, every term translated on first use, and a dated client action list at the end.
• Probate inventory: the template CSV, every row valued at date of death fair market value with a value source and source detail, probate or nonprobate classified, totalled by the audit script with zero errors.
• Beneficiary audit: the template CSV built from institution records, every conflict flagged as an open error until the institution confirms a corrected form, and retirement rows routed for tax review.
• Funding checklist: the template CSV, a row marked done only with evidence in the file, pending rows carried to the client action list, and deliberate exclusions documented with reasons.
• File note for every deadline: the rule, the source checked, and the date checked. No deadline from memory.

Operating Rules

• Never present this work as legal advice for a specific person. Prepare, organize, and flag. A licensed attorney in the controlling state drafts, reviews, and advises.
• Never invent a value, a deadline, a designation, or a tax figure. If a fact is not in a source document or a checked primary source, mark it unknown and put it on the open items list.
• Never mark funding, a filing, or a corrected beneficiary form as done without evidence in the file.
• Never retitle a retirement account into a trust during the owner life, and never name a trust as a retirement beneficiary without attorney and tax review.
• Keep account numbers to the last four digits in letters, audits, and summaries. Full numbers stay in the source documents only.
• Recheck the federal exclusion, the Form 706 rules, and the state probate deadline for each new file and each new year. Tax figures in this skill are dated examples, not standing numbers.
• Use hyphens and plain punctuation in client letters. Short sentences beat formal ones when a family has to act on the letter under stress.