Southcenter Estate Planning Guidance
Estate planning helps individuals and families in Southcenter protect their assets, care for loved ones, and ensure that personal wishes are honored during life and after death. A comprehensive plan may include wills, trusts, healthcare directives, and durable powers of attorney.
Thoughtful estate planning can reduce probate delays, minimize family conflict, and provide clear guidance for financial and medical decision-making. Plans are often customized based on family structure, property, and long-term goals.
Many estate plans also address guardianship planning for minors, elder law considerations, and long-term care planning. Regular reviews help ensure documents stay current as circumstances change.
Common planning tools include revocable living trusts, special needs trusts, marital trusts, and credit shelter trusts, depending on family and tax needs.
Learn About Estate Planning Options Before You Begin
Our experimental legal guidance chatbot provides general educational information about Washington estate planning, wills, trusts, healthcare directives, and powers of attorney.
Use it to get oriented, then schedule a consultation with Ruth for personalized guidance.
Disclaimer: The chatbot provides general information only and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Individual circumstances require personalized legal advice.
About Ruth
Ruth Apahidean is a trusts and estates attorney at the Law Office of Neil R. Sarles. Her practice focuses on elder law, estate planning, and probate. She helps individuals and families plan for the management and transfer of their assets during life and after death.
This includes creating wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives. She assists clients decide how assets should be distributed, who will make financial or medical decisions if the client becomes incapacitated, and how to protect beneficiaries such as minor children or family members with special needs.
Ruth guides individuals and families through the probate process (the court-supervised procedure used to settle a person’s estate after death). Her primary role is to assist the personal representative ensure that the deceased person’s assets are distributed according to a valid will or, if no will exists, in accordance with state law.
She has volunteered at Neighborhood Legal Clinics: Elder Law Clinic, the Washington First Responder Will Clinic, and Tacomaprobono Community Lawyers. Ruth is the Bar Talk Columnist for the King County Bar Association Bar Bulletin and the New Lawyer Liaison for the Washington State Bar Association Senior Lawyers Section.
Learn more about Ruth at https://www.sarles.com/.
Education:
- J.D., University of Washington School of Law
- B.A., History and English, University of Washington, magna cum laude
Bar Admissions:
- U.S. District Courts: Western District of Washington
- All Washington State Courts
Memberships:
- King County Bar Association
Contact Us
If you have any questions, concerns, or want to schedule a meeting, you can reach Ruth directly by email at ruth@sarles.com or using the form below.