Estate Planning Workbook | Organize Your Estate Plan — Logan Foster

Family Estate & Legacy Planning Checklist

A clear, structured checklist to organize your key decisions, inventory your assets, and prepare for a seamless estate plan.

✔ Audit Essential Legal Documents: Ensure your Will, Revocable Living Trust, Financial Power of Attorney, and Healthcare Directives are executed and reviewed within the last 3 years.
✔ Confirm Fiduciaries & Decision Makers: Formally identify primary and backup choices for your Executor, Trustee, Financial Agent, and Healthcare Proxy.
✔ Establish Minor Guardianship & Protection: Name trusted primary and backup guardians for minor children, and consider separating asset oversight with a dedicated Trustee.

✔ Conduct a Beneficiary Designation Audit: Align primary and contingent beneficiaries across retirement accounts, life insurance, and bank TOD/POD designations.
✔ Verify Living Trust Funding: Confirm that real estate deeds, taxable brokerage accounts, and core assets have been properly retitled into your trust.
✔ Compile Household Balance Sheet: Inventory cash, retirement assets, investment accounts, business interests, real estate, and liabilities to identify potential probate or tax risks.

✔ Address Unique Family Dynamics: Structure protective provisions for blended families, special needs dependants, out-of-state property, or farmland preservation.
✔ Formalize Business Succession: Review buy-sell agreements, key-person coverage, and transition plans if you own a closely held business or commercial property.

✔ Build Your Digital Vault & Access Plan: Appoint a digital executor and securely document online accounts, device access, financial logins, and photo archives.
✔ Organize Key Advisor Connections: Maintain an easily accessible directory of your attorney, financial advisor, CPA, and insurance agents for your executor.
✔ Communicate Legacy & Values: Draft personal letters of instruction, record memorial preferences, and discuss your distribution philosophy with your family.

Take the Workbook With You

Download a clean, printable PDF version of the full Family Estate & Legacy Planning Workbook.