YOUR ESTATE IS NOT YOUR LEGACY

While planning for what will happen after you pass away, you need to plan for both your estate and your legacy. The two are not autonomous.

You might have heard the term "legacy planning."

What that often means is a plan for your assets to go to charitable causes in your name after you pass away.  In that sense, it is a form of estate planning and an estate planning attorney can help you accomplish this goal.

Your legacy, however, is different from your estate.

It is important to keep that in mind so you know everything you should plan for, as Forbes points out in "What Is Your Legacy, And How Is It Different from Your Estate?"

Your estate is everything you own when you pass away.  This includes your possessions, personal property, real estate, business interests, financial accounts or anything else that you can physically possess.

When you do estate planning, you plan for how all of those possessions will be handled after you pass away.

Your legacy, on the other hand, is how you will be remembered after you pass away.

That can be anything from how your immediate family remembers you to future university students who only you know you from seeing your name on a building.

It means that when you do legacy planning, you plan your estate in a way that adds positive value to your legacy.

Reference: Forbes (August 17, 2017) "What Is Your Legacy, And How Is It Different from Your Estate?"