While there are many courses and tutorials online, learning from a book is still one of the best ways to greatly improve your skills. Below I have selected top Estate Planning books.
1. Plan Your Estate (2018)
Estate planning sounds difficult―but most people just need a few basic documents. Let Plan Your Estate show you how to protect your loved ones from legal hassles and financial uncertainty after your death. Learn about: wills and living trusts avoiding probate bypass (AB) trusts naming guardians for children leaving property to children estate, gift, and inheritance taxes strategies for business owners leaving property to charity health care directives, and financial powers of attorney. The 14th edition of Plan Your Estate is completely updated to reflect the…
2. Savvy Estate Planning: What You Need to Know Before You Talk to the Right Lawyer (2017)
Too many people make the wrong choices when it comes to estate planning. If it’s not done properly, you could leave your loved ones facing trouble when you pass away or become incapacitated. Fortunately, you can learn from others’ mistakes and be prepared before speaking to a lawyer about your future. In this no-nonsense guide, attorney James L. Cunningham, Jr. shows how to avoid the top-ten mistakes that could damage your financial succession, family, heirs, and legacy. You’ll get the unvarnished picture on probate, living trusts, living wills, powers of attorney, conservators, and guardians, as well as…
3. JK Lasser’s New Rules for Estate, Retirement, and Tax Planning ()
Since its first publication in 2002, New Rules for Estate, Retirement, and Tax Planning has sold more than 40,000 copies, providing a solid, accessible introduction to estate planning for any age or income bracket. Now in its sixth edition, Estate, Retirement, and Tax Planning continues this tradition, covering such topics as trusts, donations, life insurance, and wills in easy-to-understand language that offers valuable insights and solid strategies to help you preserve your wealth and plan your estate so that your assets go where you want with a…
4. Estate Planning Basics (2017)
Get the need-to-know basics about wills, trusts, avoiding probate, and planning for incapacity with Estate Planning Basics. This book lays out your options in plain English, guiding you to the right estate plan for you and your family. Learn about: making a will or living trust naming a guardian for your children avoiding probate choosing an executor using durable powers of attorney, and preparing a health care directive. The 9th edition is completely updated to reflect the latest information about estate planning….
5. Every Californian’s Guide To Estate Planning: Wills, Trust & Everything Else (2018)
Every Californian’s Guide to Estate Planning helps you understand the basics of leaving money and property to loved ones and charities, naming a guardian for children, and planning for beloved pets―with a special focus on issues unique to making an estate plan in California, like: how state community property rules affect inheritance and taxes how to minimize capital gains for those inheriting high value real estate legal and tax rules that apply to non-citizens and U.S. permanent residents important issues for international guardians, trustees, and executors how to make sure your heirs don’t lose a low property tax…
6. Estate Planning For Dummies (2003)
If you’re like most people, you want to be sure that, once you’ve passed on, no more of your property and money will be lost to the government than is absolutely necessary. You want to know that you’ll be leaving your heirs your assets and not your debts. You want to be absolutely certain that your will is ship-shape, your insurance policies are structured properly, and that every conceivable hole in your estate plan has been filled. And most of all, you’d like to do all of this without driving yourself crazy trying to make sense of the…
7. Estate Planning for the Savvy Client: What You Need to Know Before You Meet With Your Lawyer (Savvy Client Series) (Volume 1) (2017)
Sit down with this guide from an experienced, ivy-league-educated estate planning attorney as she answers these and other questions for you in a practical, easy-to-understnad way, just as she has done for her clients and students. This book will tell you what you need to know before you meet with your attorney or prospective attorney….
8. A Lawyer’s Guide to Estate Planning, Fundamentals for the Legal Practitioner (2019)
This book provides a helpful introduction to the basics of estate planning. It is written with an eye toward the needs of general practitioners and those who are seeking to develop a specialty in the estate-planning field. For this reason, the text is written in a user-friendly manner that provides basic text treatment of the subject along with cautions, examples, and planning pointers clearly denoted throughout the book. The cautions point out problem areas that must be considered to avoid an unwanted tax or other problem. The examples supplement the text and illustrate the point being discussed. The planning pointers show how to use the…
9. Get Your Ducks in a Row: The Baby Boomers Guide to Estate Planning (2019)
If you’re over 55, you probably know you need an estate plan. What you might not know is how to create one. Questions about cost, confusion about options, and difficulty talking about subjects like disability and death can make the process of preparing for the future seem overwhelming. That’s probably why most people put it off—even though the results of doing nothing can sometimes be devastating.What you need is a guide that explains the process clearly and comprehensively, in terms you can understand and actually use. Get Your Ducks in a Row: The Baby Boomers…
10. Estate Planning is Dead!: Asset Protection Planning is Alive and Well (A Consumer’s Guide to Modern Estate Planning) (2017)
Death and taxes are what most people are planning for in traditional estate plans, but this type of planning does nothing to protect your family from the things that are actually destroying America’s wealth and health. Learn why modern estate planning is more about asset protection than ever before. Reed K. Scott’s Asset Protection Seminars inspired this unique highly praised book. With this book you’ll discover how to protect:* Your assets from devastating healthcare costs!* Your estate from changes in the tax law!* Yourself and your spouse from predators!* Your family from remarriages and…
Best Estate Planning Books Worth Your Attention
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Genesis and download some estate planning books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Planning Gain: Providing Infrastructure and Affordable Housing
Author(s): Tony Crook, John Henneberry, Christine Whitehead
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, Year: 2016, Size: 2 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1594143
Estate and business succession planning : a practical and strategic guide for the trusted adviser
Author(s): O’Sullivan, Bernie
Publisher: The Tax Institute, Year: 2015, Size: 4 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1610124
Estate Planning: A Plain English Guide to Wills and Trusts
Author(s): Clint W. Smith J.D.
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Year: 2013, Size: 657 Kb, Download: epub
ID: 1643290
AARP JK Lasser's New Rules for Estate and Tax Planning
Author(s): Stewart H. Welch, III
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons;Wiley, Year: 2012, Size: 2 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 1345722
Probate Wars of the Rich and Famous: An Insider's Guide to Estate Planning and Probate Litigation
Author(s): Russell J. Fishkind
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Year: 2011, Size: 4 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 804850
Planning in Divided Cities (Real Estate Issues)
Author(s): Frank Gaffikin, Mike Morrissey
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, Year: 2011, Size: 3 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 813297
The 50 Biggest Estate Planning Mistakes...and How to Avoid Them
Author(s): Jean Blacklock,Sarah Kruger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons;Wiley, Year: 2011, Size: 456 Kb, Download: epub
ID: 1341982
The super and estate planning collection : a concise collection of super and estate planning materials
Author(s): Tax Institute
Publisher: The Tax Institute, Year: 2011, Size: 3 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1610145
Please note that this booklist is not definite. Some books are really chart-busters according to USA Today, others are written by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant resources you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.