Few Life & Estate Planning decisions are more important than the selection of your financial fiduciaries. After all, they will be responsible for taking care of your assets when you are incapacitated and upon your death. If you find this a difficult decision, then you may tend to procrastinate and eventually become disabled or die without a proper Life & Estate Plan. In this article, we will share some thoughts to help you select appropriate financial fiduciaries and hopefully avoid the procrastination trap. Risky Business Your fiduciaries will be responsible for all of the financial matters for which you are now responsible. For example, they must safeguard, manage and distribute all of your assets after they satisfy your legitimate creditors and ensure compliance with all tax laws. Fiduciaries are held to the highest legal standards of conduct. This fiduciary duty even extends to the rights of third parties. Teaching point: Along with the honor of being named as the financial fiduciary, comes great personal exposure to civil and even criminal liability. Common Candidates Before they understand the responsibilities and attending risks, many people look first to family members as financial fiduciaries. This is natural, because family members likely know and care about you as no stranger ever would. Nevertheless, serving as a fiduciary can be an overwhelming responsibility, especially when your fiduciaries have their own busy lives to run. For many people, third party professionals are appropriate financial fiduciaries. Corporate fiduciaries, accountants and attorneys are commonly selected. It is their business to safeguard, manage and distribute client assets . and ensure compliance with all tax laws. Also, if these third party professional fiduciaries are unrelated to you and your family members, then valuable asset protection planning may be available. A popular alternative is a team approach where you select both a family member and a third party professional to serve as co- fiduciaries. This approach combines the respective advantages of each. The family member takes care of the non- financial people concerns and the professional takes care of the financial details. Such a combination also helps preserve family relationships when someone must tell a youthful beneficiary that a red sports car is not within the letter or spirit of authorized trust fund expenditures. In other words, it is much easier for a non- family member professional to tell beneficiary Bobby " no," than it is for his favorite uncle ( as trustee). FINDING FIDUCIARIES Summary As you can see, the selection of appropriate financial fiduciaries is critical to the ultimate success of your Life & Estate Plan. Be sure to seek the advice of qualified counsel to help you carefully weigh the pros and cons before making this important decision. Remember: This definitely is an aspect of your Life & Estate Plan where an inappropriate selection could be rather expensive for you and your fiduciaries.

Note: Nothing in this publication is intended or written to be used, and cannot be used by any person for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties regarding any transactions or matters addressed herein. You should always seek advice from independent tax advisors regarding the same. [ See IRS Circular 230.] © 2009 Integrity Marketing Solutions Scott N. Alperin Alperin Law 4605 Pembroke Lake Circle Suite 300 Virginia Beach, VA 23455 Phone: ( 757) 490- 3500 Fax: ( 757) 233- 3600 scott@ alperinlaw. com Scott N. Alperin Alperin Law Phone: ( 757) 490- 3500 . Web: www. alperinlaw. com We are a full- service estate planning, business law and real estate law office working to provide Peace of Mind to our clients and their families. We are committed to personal service to each client, using only those legal tools and techniques that suit the individual client's needs, goals and personal situation. Services provided include: Revocable Living Trusts . Wills . Powers of Attorney Irrevocable Living Trusts . Life insurance Trusts Integrated Estate Planning . Real Estate . Tax Deferred Exchanges Tax Planning Strategies . Business Law Family Limited Partnerships . Limited liability Companies Corporations . Non- Profit Organizations . Asset Protection If you would like a friend or client to receive our newsletter free of charge, please call our office with their name and email address. Visit us online at www. alperinlaw. com for more information. Scott N. Alperin . Alperin Law 4605 Pembroke Lake Circle . Suite 300 Virginia Beach, VA 23455 This issue of Estate Planning Matters addresses the importance of overcoming procrastination in order to implement your estate plan. Almost everyone knows intuitively that planning for death and disability is a fundamental responsibility that every individual should undertake, but many of those same people are willfully blind when it comes to recognizing their own mortality and physical limitations. A carefully crafted estate plan will not only accomplish the goal of fulfilling one of your most important responsibilities to your family members and loved ones, but will also give you peace of mind once you have done so. Once you have completed your plan, it will require ongoing maintenance to fine tune the plan to your changing goals, family circumstances, and changes in the law. Plans that work also require you to educate yourself and the individuals who will carry through with your plan when you can no longer do so. To ensure a proper plan, work with a counseling oriented attorney who will educate you, who takes the time to get to know you, your family, your desires, your concerns, your goals, and your potential problems, who will gladly and patiently answer all your questions, no matter how small, until you understand the concept or issue, and who has dealt with the problems and results caused by poor planning. At Alperin Law, we are mindful of all of these matters as we help you to achieve your estate planning goals. We welcome your questions and comments. Please let us know if there is anyone you would like us to add to our Estate Planning Matters mailing list. Scott N. Alperin