Estate planning includes planning how to bequeath your assets upon your death, specifying details about what you want to leave to your family and friends. It includes thinking through what should happen to your home, property, material possessions, and your money—and writing a will or setting up a trust. It can comprise an advance health care directive. The process may also include instructions and requests about children, grand-children, and even pets. You can also acknowledge religious, educational, or philanthropic institutions. Estate planning is vital: Without planning, a court decides who gets your assets, as well as how and when they receive them.

Basic Procedures. Estate planning can include a number of different procedures. You can hire someone to help you plan your estate, such as an attorney or accountant, or use estate planning software to do it yourself. First, you'll need to evaluate what you have, and what you want to pass on. Perhaps you’d like a portion of your money to be donated to a local charity. Are you in a community property state where your spouse automatically inherits your house? Do you want your home to go to your children? Your possessions can be divided among your children, or given to your spouse to help pay the bills after you’ve passed on.

Create a Will. When you have an idea of who you want to inherit what, you’ll need to create a will. Again, you may want to use an attorney, a computer program, or other resources to help in this process. Remember to name an executor of your will. This person is responsible for seeing that your wishes are carried out just as you have described.

Trusts. When you want to have further control over what happens to your property, you can use a trust. Trusts divide property to limit the control one person has over it, while still allowing you to pass it on. A simple example would be to divide the property so that one child owns the house and controls and maintains it, while the other children have the right to use and live in the house at the same time. This can be done with a bank account as well. If you have more than one child, this helps everyone to get a fair share, without one child controlling all of an asset. It can reduce fighting between children later on, and ensure no one feels “cheated.”

Discussing Your Estate Plan. Discuss your estate plan with the people mentioned in it, in advance. If questions or concerns arise about the way you have divided your assets, they can be addressed, and any problems sorted out—before your death, when your beneficiaries may be overwhelmed by emotional loss. Once your estate plan and will (or trust) are in place, you will have taken a major step toward your and their peace of mind.

Seniors (and anyone else who owns property or possessions) should have an estate plan and a will. You don’t have to be “rich” to want to specify where your money and property goes. Whatever your assets, make sure they are passed on in accordance with your wishes. Don't wait until it is too late to do so.