Most people think an estate plan is a will, and most people are wrong in a way that costs their families money and months. This article explains what each document in an estate plan actually does, which asset each one controls, and why the beneficiary form on a retirement account defeats the will that mentions it by name. It covers the two very different jobs a plan performs — managing incapacity while you are alive and moving property after you die — and explains why the incapacity half is the half that gets used. It walks through wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney, health care documents, and the non-probate transfers that move most American wealth. It explains what a trust does and does not do, why an unfunded trust is an expensive folder, and how the federal estate tax actually applies to almost nobody while the income tax basis rules apply to nearly everyone. It closes with the maintenance schedule that keeps a plan from quietly becoming wrong.