How to Start an Estate Plan

By Richard Keyt, Arizona estate planning attorney. I have practiced law in Arizona since 1979. My direct line is 480-664-7478 and my email is rk@keytlaw.com.

Why starting is the hardest part

Estate planning has a reputation problem. People assume it means a long interrogation about money, a stack of paperwork they won’t understand, and a bill that arrives by the hour with no ceiling in sight. So the folder stays in the drawer.

In practice the work is far less painful than the dread. You are answering questions you already know the answers to: who you love, who you trust, what you own, and what you want to happen. My job is to translate those answers into documents that Arizona courts, banks, title companies, and hospitals will honor. You supply the judgment. I supply the machinery.

The other reason people stall is that they are waiting to feel ready — waiting until the house is refinanced, until the kids graduate, until they have “enough” to justify a trust. There is no threshold. If you own a home in Arizona, or you have minor children, or you would rather your family not spend a year in court, you are ready now.

What Arizona law does if you never get around to it

Doing nothing is a decision. It just means the Arizona Legislature writes your plan instead of you. Here is roughly what that looks like.

The intestacy statutes pick your heirs. Arizona’s rules of intestate succession decide who inherits and in what shares. Because Arizona is a community property state, the result for blended families is frequently not what the deceased spouse would have chosen — separate property and community property follow different paths, and children from a prior marriage change the math.

Your family may land in probate. Arizona does allow small estates to bypass formal probate with an affidavit. Those limits went up on September 26, 2025 — currently $200,000 for personal property and $300,000 of equity in real property, with a 30-day wait for personal property and a six-month wait for real property. Those are real thresholds, but a paid-off Valley home plus a retirement account clears them without much trouble, and then your family is in Maricopa County Superior Court.

A judge chooses who raises your children. Without a nominated guardian, the court appoints someone based on the evidence in front of it. Relatives who disagree can fight about it, and the fight happens while your children are already grieving.

Nobody has clear authority while you are alive but incapacitated. This is the part people underestimate. Death is not the only event a plan is built for. If you have a stroke and there is no financial power of attorney and no health care power of attorney in place, your spouse or child has to petition the court for guardianship and conservatorship — an expensive, public, and slow proceeding that could have been prevented by two signatures.

The five steps, start to finish

Step 1 — A free meeting, on your terms

Everything begins with a conversation that costs you nothing. You can come to my office in Scottsdale, we can talk on the phone, or we can meet on Zoom — whichever is easiest. Out-of-state and out-of-country clients who own Arizona property do this by video all the time.

In that meeting I want to understand your family before I say a word about documents: who is in it, who does not get along, whether anyone has special needs or a creditor problem, who you would trust with your checkbook, and who you would trust with your children. Then I explain in plain English what a revocable living trust actually does, when a will alone is enough, and what I would recommend in your situation. You are free to hang up and think about it. Most people don’t, but you can.

Book a free office, phone or Zoom video consultation

Step 2 — You tell us about your assets and your people

Once you decide to move forward, you fill out an online estate planning questionnaire at your kitchen table, at your own pace. It asks for names, addresses, and dates for the people in your plan, and a picture of what you own — real estate, bank and brokerage accounts, retirement plans, life insurance, business interests, vehicles. If you would rather work through it with us instead of alone, we will do it together.

This is also where the real decisions get made: who serves as successor trustee, who holds each power of attorney, at what ages your children or grandchildren receive their inheritance, and whether their inheritance should sit in a protected trust share instead of being handed over outright.

Step 3 — We draft your documents

My son Richard C. Keyt and I prepare your plan. This is not a fill-in-the-blank download. Provisions get written around the facts you gave us — a spendthrift beneficiary, a child from a first marriage, a rental property, an LLC interest, a pet that needs care.

The full package includes 36 documents and services: the revocable living trust, a pour-over will, financial power of attorney, health care power of attorney, HIPAA authorization, living will, a beneficiary deed for your home, certification of trust, personal property memorandum, successor trustee manual, guardian nominations for minor children, and more. Everything arrives organized in a binder, plus PDFs on a thumb drive.

Step 4 — The signing meeting

We walk through the documents together before you sign anything. I want you to understand what each one does and when it gets used, because the people who will rely on these documents someday are going to ask you about them. We handle the witnesses and the notary. You leave with a completed, executed estate plan.

Step 5 — Funding the trust

This is the step that other firms skip and that causes most of the trust failures I see. A trust only controls what it owns. If your home is still titled in your individual name and your brokerage account still names no beneficiary, your family may end up in the probate you paid to avoid.

You get a 22-page how-to guide on funding, and we prepare the deed transferring your Arizona real estate. We tell you exactly which accounts to retitle, which ones to leave alone, and how beneficiary designations on retirement plans and life insurance should line up with the rest of the plan. Call me while you are on hold with the bank if you need to — that is included.

What happens after you sign

An estate plan is not a monument. It is a document set that has to keep pace with your life.

For 90 days after signing, changes are free. After that, we send you email and text reminders twice a year to review your plan, because the events that make a plan obsolete — a death, a divorce, a new grandchild, a move to another state, selling the house, buying a rental — rarely feel like legal events when they happen.

Your plan also includes a five-year DocuBank membership, so your health care directives can be retrieved by a hospital at 2 a.m. when the binder is in a closet at home. And your successor trustee gets a written manual explaining what the job actually requires, so the person you picked is not starting from zero on the worst day of their life.

What it costs

I quote a flat fee before any work begins. I do not bill by the hour for estate planning, which means you can call, email, or text me during the process without watching a meter run.

That fee covers all 36 documents and services, every planning meeting, the signing appointment, the deed for your Arizona home, the funding guidance, and 90 days of free changes. The initial consultation is free whether or not you hire me.

What to gather before we meet

Nothing on this list is required for the free consultation — come with questions and nothing else if you prefer. But if you like to be prepared, these are the things I will eventually ask about:

• Your people. Full legal names, addresses, and birth dates for your spouse or partner, children, and anyone else you want to include.

• Your candidates. First and backup choices for successor trustee, agent under each power of attorney, personal representative, and guardian for minor children. Ask them first if you can.

• Real estate. The address and, if you have it, the recorded deed for every property you own — in Arizona or anywhere else.

• Accounts. A rough list of banks, brokerages, retirement plans, and life insurance policies, with approximate values and current beneficiary designations.

• Business interests. Operating agreements or stock records for any LLC, corporation, or partnership you own a piece of.

• Existing documents. Any will, trust, prenuptial agreement, divorce decree, or power of attorney you have already signed.

• The complications. A beneficiary with special needs, a child you want to treat differently, an addiction or creditor issue, an estranged relative you want expressly excluded. Tell me. These are the facts that change the drafting.

If you already have a will or a trust

Bring it in. I will review what you have and tell you honestly whether it still works. Sometimes it does and you need nothing from me.

More often I find one of a handful of problems. The trust was signed years ago and never funded, so it controls nothing. It was drafted in another state before the client moved to Arizona. The named trustee has died, moved away, or is no longer someone the client trusts. Beneficiary designations on a 401(k) still name an ex-spouse. Or the plan leaves everything outright to adult children, exposing their inheritance to their divorces, lawsuits, and creditors when a protected trust share would have shielded it.

Questions people ask me first

Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?

A will does not avoid probate — it is the instruction manual for a probate. If you own Arizona real estate or your estate exceeds the small estate affidavit limits, a revocable living trust is usually how you keep your family out of court. I will tell you if your situation is simple enough that a will and a beneficiary deed will do.

How long does the whole process take?

Most clients go from first phone call to signed plan in two to four weeks. The pace is set mostly by how quickly you return the questionnaire. If you have a surgery or a flight coming up, tell me and we will work around it.

Can we do this without coming to the office?

Yes. Consultations and design meetings happen by phone or Zoom every week. The signing meeting is the one appointment where being in the same room is easiest, because of the witness and notary requirements.

Will the trust protect my assets from my own creditors?

No, and be skeptical of anyone who tells you otherwise. A revocable trust stays revocable — you can undo it, so your creditors can reach it. What it can do is protect what your children and grandchildren inherit, by keeping their share in a trust rather than handing it to them outright.

I own rental property or an LLC. Does that change things?

It changes the drafting and the funding. I have formed more than 10,000 Arizona LLCs, so coordinating a company with a trust is familiar ground — the membership interest has to be assigned properly and the operating agreement has to permit it.

What if I move out of Arizona later?

Your trust and will generally remain valid, but powers of attorney and health care directives are the documents most likely to need updating for a new state. Call me when it happens and we will sort out what needs attention.

How to start today

The first step is a free conversation, and it takes fifteen minutes to find out whether you need anything at all. Pick whichever of these is easiest for you.

If you want to read more before you call, start with our Arizona estate plan package page for the full list of documents and services, or browse our Arizona wills, trusts, and estate planning articles.

This page provides general information about Arizona estate planning and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Dollar amounts, statutory thresholds, and tax exemptions change; confirm current figures with a licensed Arizona attorney before relying on them. KEYTLaw, LLC, 7373 E. Doubletree Ranch Road, Suite 135, Scottsdale, Arizona 85258.