Services Overview

Estate Planning Services

• Wills
• Trusts
• IRA Distribution Planning
• Estate Tax Planning
• Powers of Attorney
• Business organizations and incorporations
• Family Limited Partnerships
• Limited Liability Companies
• Asset Protection Planning

Estate planning includes the basic planning for potential disability as well as death.  It includes tax planning and asset protection planning, from the basic to the highly sophisticated. It involves issues of charitable planning and tax consequences of hte same.  It often involves issues of domestic relations laws.  It requires special knowledge and abilities with regard to property law and property transfers.

Estate planning, or total family wealth planning, also imposes significant liability risks on us, and requires that we assume significant responsibilities for plan design, documentation that fits the design, and proper plan implementation.  if there is a defect in any step of the procedure, your family will look to us for monetary relief.  That is why we have to charge for these responsibilities assumed, and cannot have flat fees for particular types of documents used in a plan.

For personal planning that involves only non-monetary matters, such as living wills, medical powers of attorney, and financial powers of attorney, we provide value in the potential peace of mind and in the potential savings of expenses that might otherwise arise out of interdiction proceedings.  We charge set fees for these responsibilities assumed and value provided.

With disability planning, you avoid interdiction proceedings, preserves family privacy, and in the case of third party trusts can avoid probate.  Disability doucmentation includes a financial power of attorney, living will, and medical power of attorney.  Wills and trust portfolios includes these same things, along with memoranda for disposition of personal effects, forms for memorial services, and related items, as well as designation of guardians for minor children where needed.  Trust portfolios always include funding instructions and an operating manual for a living trust.

Trust planning provides you value in peace of mind regarding estate disposition and designation of who will handle the estate after death, and also avoids both interdiction and most of the hassles of probate.  This planning can also provide significant estate tax savings and asset protection for your family.  Added value is often provided in the form of income tax savings resulting from the ability to use income splitting techniques with trusts, and income tax savings in connection with business continuity and disposition of assets as part of a total wealth plan.

Heritage Trusts can allow you to provide continuing asset protection for their children.

Wealth planning requires detailed knowledge about you and your family, your desires, your income and income tax issues, your assets and desires about transfer or disposition of assets, and your needs for predictability of what will go to whom, how, and when.  This information results in a plan design, then documentation and help with execution of documents, then implementation.  Finally, planning includes subsequent plan review sessions to assure compliance with plan design or determine changes in design, and to assure all implementation steps are taken to complete the plan as designed.

IIn cases that involve significant documentation to review, and estates with significant value, we use a comprehensive process that will involve our review of significant information clients will provide to us. There is a set review fee of $2,500 in such cases.  We follow our review with a complete written summary of your family and financial information, the current level of planning you have in place as shown by documents furnished to us, and our opinion about whether we may be able to improve on your current plan.

Our review process is labor intensive.  We obviously make no money doing reviews.  But the work is necessary for us to provide a good faith opinion baout whether we can provide significant improvements over your existing plan.  For information on how the wealth planning process works and what

iinformation is required, please call us.

All levels of estate planning and wealth planning have high value because they protect and plan for the most important things in life - the people you love.  The planning that you do today will not benefit you personally, you will not be around to experience it.  But the planning you do will make a difference in the lives of your children and other beneficiaries, and you have the opportunity to leave them a legacy.

Fee Schedule Our fees start at $1,500.  During the plan design process, we design a plan based on your goals and priorities, and your fee will be determined based on your personal planning priorities.