Estate Planning

​Protect Your Legacy — Colorado Estate Planning

Estate planning isn’t just for the wealthy—it’s about making sure your wishes, financial assets, beneficiary designations, insurance, retirement accounts, and legacy goals work together. At Dottenwhy Financial Group, we help Colorado families coordinate the financial side of their estate plan and work alongside qualified estate-planning attorneys and tax professionals when legal or tax guidance is needed.

How We Help Coordinate Your Estate & Legacy Plan:

• Coordinate your financial plan with your legal documents: We help you review how your assets, account ownership, beneficiary designations, retirement accounts, and insurance align with your existing estate plan. When wills, trusts, powers of attorney, or other legal documents need to be created or updated, we coordinate with qualified estate-planning attorneys.
• Identify potential planning gaps: We help families organize financial and legacy goals involving inheritances, property, beneficiaries, and future generations so those goals can be properly coordinated with their legal, and tax professionals.
• Minimize taxes and probate complications: Colorado has no estate tax, but assets may still go through probate unless properly titled or held in trust. Account ownership, beneficiary designations, retirement accounts, insurance, and other financial assets can have a significant impact on how wealth ultimately transfers. We help coordinate design strategies to keep the process smooth, efficient, and private.
• Review how assets are intended to pass to beneficiaries: From retirement accounts and life insurance to investment accounts, businesses, and real estate, we help families understand how the financial pieces of their estate plan fit together.
• Charitable giving and legacy planning: We help evaluate financial strategies for supporting the people and causes you care about and coordinate with tax and legal professionals when appropriate.
• Multi-generational planning: From education funding and life insurance to beneficiary strategies and family wealth transfer, we help coordinate the financial strategies that can support your long-term legacy goals.

Why It Matters for Colorado Families

• Financial coordination: Even when legal documents are already in place, beneficiary designations, account ownership, retirement assets, insurance, and other financial decisions may not be fully coordinated with them.
• Real estate & property: Colorado families may own primary residences, investment properties, mountain homes, ranches, or property outside the state. We help incorporate these assets into the broader financial conversation and coordinate with estate-planning attorneys when legal ownership or trust questions arise.
• Planning for incapacity: A comprehensive financial plan should account for the possibility that someone else may eventually need to assist with financial decisions. We encourage clients to review appropriate powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and related legal documents with a qualified estate-planning attorney.
• Blended families: Families with children from previous relationships can face additional financial and estate-planning complexity. We help review beneficiary designations, insurance, retirement accounts, and other financial assets so they can be coordinated with the family’s overall estate plan.

Your Colorado Legacy, Protected
Estate planning is about more than having documents in a drawer. Your legal documents, beneficiaries, retirement accounts, insurance, property, and financial assets should work together. Dottenwhy Financial Group helps families identify potential gaps, coordinate the financial pieces, and work with legal and tax professionals to help create a more complete legacy strategy.

Is Your Estate Plan Actually Coordinated?
Even if you already have a will or trust, your beneficiary designations, retirement accounts, insurance, property, and other financial assets may not be fully aligned with your estate plan.

Schedule a Complementary Estate Plan Coordination Review to identify potential financial gaps and determine what, if anything, may need further attention.

Schedule My Complementary Review

case study: Denver family with real estate & blended household

Sarah, a widowed business owner from Denver, remarried in her late 50s. Between her and her spouse, they had adult children from prior marriages, as well as a mountain property in Breckenridge and a home in Denver. Sarah wanted to ensure her new husband would be financially secure if she passed, but also that her children from her first marriage would eventually inherit the family cabin. 

• We helped Sarah establish a revocable living trust to hold both properties, avoiding probate in multiple counties.
• We helped coordinate the creation a QTIP trust (Qualified Terminable Interest Property) to provide lifetime income and housing rights for her spouse, while ensuring the Breckenridge property ultimately passed to her children.
• Coordinated the updating of powers of attorney and healthcare directives which ensured both her spouse and children were clear on her wishes.
• Working alongside her tax professional, we helped evaluate charitable-giving strategies designed to support a Denver nonprofit that was important to Sarah while coordinating those goals with her broader financial plan.

The coordinated approach gave Sarah greater clarity around how her financial assets, legal documents, family priorities, and legacy goals were intended to work together.

case study: weld county ranching family with multi-generational planning

The Martinez family owned a cattle ranch in Weld County that had been in the family for over 70 years. The parents, Carlos and Elena, wanted to ensure the ranch stayed in the family but faced challenges: one son was actively involved in the ranch, while their daughter lived in Denver and had no interest in agricultural operations. They were also concerned about potential disputes and the financial strain of estate taxes at the federal level.

• We helped coordinate the creation a family trust strategy intended to preserve the ranch for the next generation while addressing the family’s goal of treating both children fairly.
• To provide liquidity for the daughter’s share, we used a life insurance strategy that gave her a direct inheritance without forcing the sale of ranch land.
• We helped the family evaluate the financial components and structure of their succession plan with clear roles and responsibilities, so the ranch could continue operating smoothly.
• Through coordination with a qualified estate planning attorney, updated powers of attorney and healthcare directives were put in place to protect Carlos and Elena’s interests in case of incapacity.
• We coordinated the financial components of the strategy with the family’s attorney and CPA, who provided the appropriate legal and tax guidance for the family’s circumstances.

Today, the Martinez family has a a more coordinated strategy connecting the family’s financial resources, succession goals, insurance planning, and estate-planning priorities.

​Dottenwhy Financial Group, LLC is not a law firm and does not provide legal or tax advice or draft legal documents. We help clients evaluate and coordinate the financial components of their estate and legacy planning. When legal documents, legal advice, or tax advice are required, we encourage clients to work with qualified attorneys and tax professionals. Clients should consult their own legal and tax advisors regarding their individual circumstances.