Services
Estate Planning
Having an estate plan is one of the most important decisions you can make for your family. The key instrument guiding your estate plan is the revocable living trust. Anyone over the age of 18 and with assets over $150,000 should consider a revocable living trust in order to ensure that 1) your beneficiaries can avoid the immense cost and time of probate, and 2) your assets will be properly managed and utilized for your benefit if you ever become incapacitated, without the cost and time of conservatorship proceedings.
A well-drafted estate plan by an experienced estate planning attorney, such as Michael S. Demian, can provide you with peace of mind that your successors will seamlessly take your place as the ‘manager’ or trustee of your trust assets, and that you and/or your spouse, children, or other beneficiaries will benefit from proper planning to minimize tax exposure, ensure that assets are protected for children in blended families, maximize charitable deductions, and provide your beneficiaries with protection from creditors, lawsuits, or marriage dissolution.
In addition to a revocable living trust, a basic estate plan should include the following:
§ A Pour-Over Will
§ A Durable Power of Attorney
§ An Advance Health Care Directive
§ A HIPAA Authorization
§ A General Assignment of Property
Additionally, for high-net worth individuals, an estate plan can also include various irrevocable trusts or gift planning vehicles to ensure minimum to no tax exposure as it relates to estate tax. We will also provide you with guidance and strategies for how to help your beneficiaries minimize any capital gains or property tax exposures as a result of significant inheritance.
For a FREE consultation, contact us today to discuss how an estate plan can be beneficial to your family.
Trust Administration
If you are tasked with the important role of successor trustee over a loved one’s trust assets, the process of administering a trust legally and in adherence to the trustor’s wishes can be an overwhelming process. The Law Offices of Michael S. Demian can assist you in properly exercising your fiduciary duties as successor trustee and help you through the myriad of responsibilities of ensuring that an estate is properly administered, distributed, and closed.
The Law Offices of Michael S. Demian is dedicated to helping you through such an emotional and trying process with ease, professionalism, and empathy.
For a FREE consultation, contact us today to discuss the trust administration process.
Probate Matters
The goal of a properly drafted estate plan, particularly the trust document, is to avoid the cost and time associated with probate. Without any plan in hand, or a plan that simply consists of a will, most estates over $150,000 will need to go through probate. During that process, the court decides who will be the executor of the estate, what the estate consists of, and who will be the beneficiaries of the estate and in what proportions.
If an estate goes through probate, then the attorney’s fees are statutory in nature, based on the following sliding scale:
4% of the first $100,000
3% of the next $100,000
2% of the next $800,000
1% on the next $9,000,000
0.5% on the next $15,000,000
A reasonable fee thereafter
The above amounts are based on one’s gross estate—in other words, without subtraction of any debts or liabilities.
Therefore, probate is an expensive and time-consuming process that should be avoided!
For a fraction of the above costs, one can (and should) have a trust-based estate plan drafted by an experienced attorney, such as Michael S. Demian, to avoid the unnecessary cost and headache of probate on one’s beneficiaries.
Nonetheless, sometimes even with one’s best intentions in mind, documents that are poorly drafted, incomplete, unclear, out-dated, or ineffective can cause issues. In other cases, the trustor’s wishes might not be able to be met because of unexpected reasons—such as certain assets were not properly titled to the trust or no longer exist, or a named successor trustee is unable to, or refuses to, serve as trustee. Other times, beneficiaries or other heirs have contested the terms of the trust.
In such scenarios, a trusted attorney such as Michael S. Demian can assist you in dealing with the challenges of the probate court to help overcome whatever unintentional obstacles have emerged after your loved one’s death.
If you have a probate issue, contact us for a FREE consultation today to discuss your options.