Vanilla simplifies estate planning in Arizona by helping you organize and visualize every client’s complete financial picture.
Vanilla simplifies estate planning in Arizona by helping you organize and visualize every client’s complete financial picture.
“Vanilla helps us create outstanding estate plan reviews that our clients can see and understand. And the platform helps us engage clients in ongoing conversations around their legacy.”
Michael Rossi, CFP®
Financial Advisor
Arizona Estate Planning Documents
Advisors invite clients to create estate documents.
Clients go through a self-guided questionnaire.
Clients review and finalize the plan.
Printed documents are shipped for signature.
Advisor keeps track of clients’ progress.
The estate plan is visualized in Vanilla.
Estate laws and probate processes vary from state to state. Here are a few distinctions to note in Arizona:
Survivorship requirements: In Arizona, there are specific laws regarding heir survivorship. By law, a beneficiary must survive the decedent by at least 120 hours (5 days) to be eligible to inherit assets either according to the will or through intestate succession if there is no will. The purpose of this is to ensure heirs can be clearly determined in situations where deaths occur close together.
Community property: Arizona is one of nine states that recognizes community property, meaning that any assets acquired during a marriage are considered jointly owned by both spouses. This means that, during probate, the decedent’s spouse is entitled to half of the community property.
Small estate affidavit: Like many states, Arizona offers a small estate affidavit for estates that follow below certain thresholds of value. To qualify, an estate’s personal property must be valued at $75,000 or less, or its real property (like a residence) must be valued at $100,000 or less. In these cases, beneficiaries can claim the property without going through the full probate process.
Formal vs. Informal probate: For estates that are uncontested and properly executed, Arizona allows informal probate. This is a simplified probate process that doesn’t require court hearings and thus may be faster and lower cost than a formal probate. For estates that are contested, complex, or in which other complications arise, formal probate and court supervision are required in Arizona.
Distinct timelines: Unlike many states, Arizona sets out explicit timelines for starting the probate process. For example, probate must begin within two years of the person’s death unless there are special circumstances. Additionally, once probate has been initiated, creditors have exactly four months after the executor makes public notice of the probate to make any claims against the estate.
Clients answer questions through a step-by-step process that generates their estate planning documents.
Clients can choose multiple options based upon their needs such as a QTIP marital trust or outright distribution to spouse, aged-based trust distributions for assets left to people in trust, and a perpetual pot trust for some or all assets left to children or descendants.
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Invite your clients to create core estate planning documents. Monitor the status of invites sent and your clients’ progress to ensure they’re successfully completed and executed.
Information from the estate documents flows directly into Vanilla so advisors can immediately see the specific fact patterns and integrate their clients’ financial data.
Integrations
Create estate plan overviews
Organize and onboard clients’ plans in one place.
Visualize how the estate plan works
Simplify complex plans with interactive diagrams.
Drive ongoing legacy planning
Create strategies and opportunities through impactful estate planning conversations.
Yes, Vanilla has a suite of core estate planning documents that have been tailored to AZ law by top AZ-licensed attorneys.
Yes, Vanilla enables advisors to create new estate plans and generate automated visualizations, reports and potential opportunities through Document Builder.
Vanilla’s complete estate planning solution can help wealth and estate planners standardize estate reviews, eliminate manual workflows, visualize estate plans, and create more efficient teams.
Offering estate planning services has myriad benefits for financial advisors. It enables advisors to expand share of wallet, win new clients, connect to the next generation, and better tailor financial advice to individual needs.
Vanilla ensures every customer is set up for success with a library of resources we continually update. In addition to our support team members, Vanilla customers have access to onboarding materials, our product knowledge base, courses through Vanilla Academy, monthly release webinars, and more.
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