Estate Planning
Everyone needs a plan. Almost nobody needs the expensive one.
What a basic plan does, when a trust earns its cost, and what the tax tools are actually for.
Estate planning has an honesty problem. A great deal of what is sold is sold to people who do not need it, and a great deal of what people actually need — naming a guardian, signing a power of attorney, fixing a beneficiary designation that still names an ex-spouse — costs almost nothing and gets skipped. This page is the map. It tells you which layer of planning fits your situation, what each one does, and where the line is between a document you genuinely need and one somebody wants to sell you.
Where to start
Three questions decide almost everything.
Is there anyone who cannot manage money?
A minor child, a family member with a disability, an adult who struggles with addiction or creditors. If yes, you need a trust of some kind — not because of taxes, but because handing that person a check is the problem you are trying to prevent.
Do you own real estate, a business, or property in more than one state?
Real estate is what drives most people into probate, and property in a second state can mean a second probate. This is the most common reason an ordinary Missouri family ends up wanting a revocable trust.
Is your estate anywhere near $15 million?
If not — and for the overwhelming majority of people it is not — you do not have a federal estate tax problem, and Missouri imposes no estate or inheritance tax at all. Almost everything in the advanced tax toolkit is irrelevant to you, and anyone selling it to you anyway should be asked why.
The layers
Four levels of planning. Most people stop at the second.
The basic estate plan
A will, a durable financial power of attorney, health care documents, a guardian nomination, and the beneficiary deeds and TOD designations that move assets without a court. This is what everyone needs, and for many people it is the whole plan.
The revocable living trust
Avoids probate, keeps your affairs private, and lets someone step in immediately if you become incapacitated. You keep complete control and can undo it any time. Earns its cost when there is real estate, a business, a blended family, or a beneficiary who needs the money managed.
Taxable estate planning
For estates approaching or above the $15 million federal exclusion, and for the growing asset — the business, the farm, the block of stock — that may cross it later. Freezing values, using the exclusion while it is available, and the tools that do it.
Irrevocable trusts
The specialist tools: tax reduction, charitable giving, asset protection, special needs, long-term care, and firearms. You give up control in exchange for something specific. Every type available in Missouri, what each one does, and who it is actually for.
Most families do not have a tax problem. They have a probate problem and a paperwork problem. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21, signed 4 July 2025) set the federal estate tax exclusion permanently at $15 million per person for 2026, indexed after that — $30 million for a married couple with portability. Missouri’s own estate tax is a “pick-up” tax tied to a federal credit that has been zero since 2005 (RSMo § 145.011), and the Missouri Department of Revenue confirms no Missouri estate tax return is required for deaths on or after 1 January 2005. Missouri has no inheritance tax either. So for nearly everyone reading this, the enemy is not tax. It is probate, delay, a court-appointed guardian, and a beneficiary form nobody updated after a divorce.
No plan
Missouri has already written one for you.
Your property goes where the statute says. Under RSMo § 474.010, a surviving spouse takes the first $20,000 of the intestate estate plus half the balance — but only if every one of your children is also that spouse’s child. In a blended family, the spouse takes half and the children take half, immediately, regardless of what you would have wanted or what the surviving spouse needs to live on. That single sentence has produced more family litigation than any other in Missouri probate.
A judge picks who raises your children. The court will consider your family, but with no nomination in a will or a signed writing, the decision belongs to the judge and to whoever asks for it first. Naming a guardian takes one paragraph.
Somebody has to be appointed to act for you. Without a durable power of attorney, a family member who needs to pay your bills during an illness must open a guardianship or conservatorship — a public court proceeding, with a filing fee, a hearing, a lawyer, and continuing court supervision for as long as you live.
Everything becomes public. Probate files are public records. What you owned, what you owed, who received it, and any fight about it can be read by anyone, including people looking for exactly that.
Your minor child inherits at eighteen, in cash. No trust means no strings. Under Missouri’s Transfers to Minors Law a custodianship generally runs to twenty-one (RSMo § 404.051) — better, and still not what most parents mean when they picture their child receiving a life insurance policy.
How this works
You will be told which layer you need, including when it is the cheap one.
A conversation, not an intake form
Twenty minutes, free. What you own, how it is titled, who is in the picture, and what you are actually worried about — which is usually a person rather than an asset.
A recommendation with a number
Which documents, why each one, and what it costs as a flat fee quoted before any work begins. If a basic plan is the right answer, that is what you will be told.
Drafting and review
Documents drafted for your situation, then walked through with you in plain language before anything is signed. You should understand every document you sign.
Signing, done properly
Missouri requires two witnesses for a will (RSMo § 474.320) and a self-proving affidavit is worth the extra minute (§ 474.337). Execution errors are the most avoidable way for a plan to fail.
Funding — the step that gets skipped
A trust controls only what it owns. Deeds recorded, accounts retitled, beneficiary designations aligned. An unfunded trust is the most expensive way to still have a probate, and it is depressingly common.
Review when life changes
Marriage, divorce, a birth, a death, a move to another state, a business sold, a significant change in value. Not annually for its own sake — when something actually happens.
Meet Derek Haake
He settled the estates before he drafted the plans.
Derek spent three years as a Vice President and Estate Settlement Officer at Bank of America Private Bank — the country’s largest provider of managed personal trust services — administering estates for families whose planning had already been done, well or badly, by somebody else. He read hundreds of plans after the person who signed them could no longer explain what they meant.
That is an unusual way into this work, and it changes what you draft. He has watched trusts fail because nobody funded them, watched beneficiary designations override carefully written wills, and watched families litigate over a sentence that seemed clear enough in the conference room. The documents he writes are written against those outcomes.
He also litigates. Almost fifteen years of will contests, trust disputes and fiduciary claims means the plan you sign was drafted by someone who knows exactly how a plan gets attacked — and who will still be there if it is.
Common questions
Estate planning in Missouri, answered.
Do I need an estate plan if I do not have much?
Yes, and the reason has nothing to do with the size of the estate. The documents that matter most for a person of modest means are the ones that operate while you are alive: a durable financial power of attorney, a health care power of attorney, and a health care directive. Without them, a family member who needs to act for you has to ask a court for authority, which costs more than the documents would have.
The second reason is children. If you have minor children, the guardian nomination in your will may be the single most consequential paragraph you ever sign, and it costs nothing extra.
The third is that “not much” often turns out to be more than people think once a house, a retirement account and a life insurance policy are counted. A $400,000 life insurance policy payable to a nineteen-year-old is a real planning problem regardless of what the family earns.
What is the difference between a will and a trust?
A will directs what happens to property that passes through probate, takes effect only at death, and is a public court filing. A trust holds property during your life and after it, operates without court supervision, is private, and provides for incapacity as well as death.
The practical difference is control over timing. A will hands assets to beneficiaries outright once probate concludes. A trust can hold a share for a child until a stated age, protect a beneficiary’s inheritance from their creditors or a divorce, and provide for a person with a disability without costing them public benefits.
Crucially, a trust only governs what it actually owns. A trust that was signed but never funded controls nothing, and the estate goes through probate anyway. We have written more on this — see what is the difference between a will and a trust.
How do I avoid probate in Missouri?
Probate governs assets held in the decedent’s sole name with no beneficiary designation. So you avoid it by making sure nothing is in that category. There are four ordinary ways.
Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance. Transfer-on-death and pay-on-death registration on bank and brokerage accounts under RSMo § 461.028. A beneficiary deed on Missouri real estate under § 461.025, which must state that it takes effect only at death and must be recorded before you die. And a funded revocable trust, which is the comprehensive version.
Joint ownership with right of survivorship also avoids probate but is the option most likely to go wrong — it exposes the asset to the joint owner’s creditors and divorce, can create an unintended gift, and frequently disinherits the wrong people when the survivor later makes their own plan.
Small estates have a shortcut. Where the estate is $40,000 or less and thirty days have passed, RSMo § 473.097 allows a small estate affidavit instead of full administration — see how small estate affidavits work in Missouri.
Will my family owe estate tax?
Almost certainly not. The federal exclusion is $15 million per person for 2026 under IRC § 2010(c), made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and indexed for inflation after 2026. A married couple can shelter $30 million with portability. Missouri imposes no estate tax and no inheritance tax.
The one trap worth knowing: portability is not automatic. To preserve a deceased spouse’s unused exclusion, the executor must file a federal estate tax return and make the election — even where no tax is due and no return would otherwise be required. Rev. Proc. 2022-32 allows a simplified late election up to five years after death, which has rescued a great many families who did not know.
If your estate is near the line, or holds an asset likely to grow past it, see taxable estate planning. If it is not, be skeptical of anyone selling you tax-driven structures.
What does a durable power of attorney actually do?
It names someone to handle your financial affairs if you cannot — paying bills, dealing with banks and insurers, managing property, filing taxes. “Durable” means it survives your incapacity, which is the only time it matters. Missouri requires specific language and formalities under RSMo § 404.705.
What surprises people is how much has to be spelled out. RSMo § 404.710.6 lists twelve powers an agent may exercise only if expressly enumerated — including making gifts, creating or amending a trust, changing beneficiary designations, creating survivorship interests, and consenting to health care. A generic form downloaded from the internet routinely omits every one of them, and the omission is discovered at the moment the authority is needed.
Two hard limits: no power of attorney can authorize someone to make a will for you, and the authority ends at death. From that moment the personal representative or trustee takes over.
What health care documents do I need in Missouri?
Two, and they do different jobs. A durable power of attorney for health care under the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Act, RSMo §§ 404.800–404.865, names a person to make medical decisions when you cannot. A health care directive — the living will — under RSMo § 459.015 states your own wishes about death-prolonging procedures.
One Missouri detail matters enormously and is frequently missed: authority to direct the withholding or withdrawal of artificially supplied nutrition and hydration must be specifically granted in the document under RSMo § 404.820. Without that language, the agent you chose cannot make the decision you appointed them to make.
Add a HIPAA authorization so your agent can actually obtain your medical records, and give copies to your physician and your agent. A perfect document in a safe deposit box helps nobody at 2 a.m.
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
A will is enough for a good number of Missouri families — particularly where the assets are retirement accounts and life insurance with current beneficiary designations, the house is jointly owned or covered by a beneficiary deed, everyone in line to inherit is a competent adult, and nobody is fighting.
A trust starts earning its cost when any of these appear: real estate, especially in more than one state; a closely held business; a blended family; a beneficiary who is a minor, has a disability, has creditor problems, or simply should not receive a lump sum; a desire for privacy; or a real concern about incapacity, since a successor trustee can act immediately with no court involvement.
The honest framing is that a trust buys control and privacy, not tax savings — a revocable trust saves no income or estate tax whatsoever. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. See revocable trusts for the full picture.
What happens to my minor children?
Two separate questions, and both need answers. Who raises them is the guardian nomination, made in your will or, for a standby guardian, in a separate signed writing under RSMo § 475.046. Under § 475.045, a person appointed by the will of the last surviving parent has priority. Name an alternate, and talk to the people you name first.
Who manages the money is a different job and often a different person. Without planning, a child’s inheritance goes into a conservatorship until eighteen or a custodianship until twenty-one, then is handed over. A trust lets you stage it — support and education while they are young, distributions at ages you choose, or a lifetime trust for a child who needs one.
Naming the same person for both is common and not automatic. The person you want raising your children is not always the person you want investing a life insurance policy for fifteen years.
What is a beneficiary deed and should I use one?
A beneficiary deed transfers Missouri real estate at your death without probate. You keep full ownership and control while alive — you can sell, mortgage, or revoke it — and the property passes automatically at death. It is authorized by RSMo § 461.025.
Two requirements are absolute: the deed must expressly state that it is not to take effect until the owner’s death, and it must be recorded with the recorder of deeds before the owner dies. A beneficiary deed found in a drawer after a funeral does nothing. No consideration is required and it need not be delivered to the beneficiary, who has no interest at all until you die.
It is an excellent tool for a single property passing to one or two capable adults, and a poor one where beneficiaries might disagree about selling, where a beneficiary is a minor or has a disability or creditor problems, or where the property may need to be sold to pay debts. It can also name a trust as the grantee beneficiary, which is often the cleaner answer.
Can I just use an online form?
For some people, honestly, yes — and we have said so publicly. We built a free basic estate plan tool for exactly that reason. A simple estate, a straightforward family and no complications is a real category.
What online forms are bad at is everything specific to Missouri and everything specific to you. They rarely include the express powers § 404.710.6 requires. They almost never include the artificial nutrition language § 404.820 requires. They do not coordinate beneficiary designations, and they never fund a trust.
They also cannot notice a problem. Nobody reviewing a form asks whether your daughter’s husband should be a co-trustee, or whether the account you added your son to as a joint owner just disinherited his siblings. That noticing is most of what you are paying a lawyer for.
What about my digital life — photos, accounts, passwords?
It is a real and growing problem, and the law has been slower than the technology. Photographs and messages held in cloud accounts are frequently lost entirely because no one had authority to access them and terms of service forbid sharing credentials.
Two practical steps solve most of it. First, use the tools the platforms already provide — Apple’s Legacy Contact in particular is genuinely good and takes two minutes; see our walkthrough. Second, include digital asset authority in your power of attorney and your will or trust.
Then keep an inventory: what accounts exist, where they are, and how the person you have named would find them. It does not belong in the will itself, which becomes a public record. See completing a digital estate plan.
How often should I update my plan?
When something happens, not on a calendar. The events that matter: marriage or divorce — yours or a beneficiary’s; a birth, adoption or death; moving to or from Missouri; buying real estate, particularly in another state; starting, buying or selling a business; a substantial change in what you own; a change in the health of anyone named; and a named fiduciary who is no longer the right choice.
Beneficiary designations deserve their own review, because they override your will and trust entirely. An ex-spouse still listed on a 401(k) receives the 401(k). This is one of the most common and most painful failures in the whole field, and it is fixed with a phone call.
Beyond that, a look every three to five years is sensible. Tax law changed materially in 2025, the SECURE Act rewrote how retirement accounts pass to trusts, and a plan drafted before those changes may no longer do what it was built to do.
What does an estate plan cost, and how does this office work?
Flat fees, quoted before any work starts. Estate planning has a knowable scope, and there is no reason for a client to sign an engagement without a number. The range depends on which layer you need — a basic plan is a fraction of a funded trust plan, and both are a fraction of an irrevocable trust structure.
Meetings can be in person in Wildwood or St. Louis, or entirely remote. Remote signings still require Missouri’s formalities to be met properly, which is handled either way — see virtual estate planning in Missouri.
The consultation is free and is a real conversation. If the honest answer is that you need three documents rather than a trust package, that is the answer you will get.
Ready to start?
Replace Missouri’s plan with yours.
Twenty minutes, no commitment. Bring a rough list of what you own, how it is titled, and who you would want deciding things. You will leave knowing which layer of planning you actually need and what it costs — including if the answer is the inexpensive one.
Schedule a Free Consultation(314) 732-1547
Email derek@haakelawgroup.com · Offices in Wildwood, MO & St. Louis, MO (by appointment)
This page is general information about Missouri and federal law, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Estate and tax planning depends on your particular facts, and tax matters should be reviewed with a qualified tax professional. Consult a licensed attorney about your situation.