Estate Planning

One of the last things people wish to think about is their own incapacity or mortality. An experienced and compassionate estate planner can help you promptly and efficiently evaluate your holdings and establish and maintain a viable estate plan so that you can focus on living life and not worrying about what will happen if something should happen to you.

At DeMeo DeMeo & West we take the time necessary to learn about your circumstances, needs, and wishes in order to arrive at an estate plan which meets those needs and goals in the event of incapacity and/or death. While no “standard estate plan” is right for everyone there are a number of common tools and devices used to plan one’s estate including:

• Revocable Living Trust: a type of contract set up by a person to accomplish a particular disposition of property and provide for succession of property to beneficiaries after death without a Court-supervised probate administration. Such trusts also provide guidance for incapacity and are commonly used to avoid excess expenses associated with the Probate process and to ensure the dignity of specific gifts to others.
• Wills, Trust Wills (Testamentary Trusts) and Pour-Over Wills: documents which dictate the manner in which property shall be distributed after death to provide for succession of property to beneficiaries.
• Power of Attorney for Financial Purposes (Asset Managment): a device used to avoid a Court-supervised Conservatorship proceeding to allow others to act for those who are no longer able to act for themselves by designating such other persons as agents before a triggering event such as a stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s, an accident, or other condition rendering one incapacitated;
• Advance Care Directive (Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care): a device used to help plan for and appoint an agent to act for the principal relative to health care decisions in the event of incapacity. These documents often include specific instructions to the agent about desires for disposition of remains, where the principal wishes to live out his or her life, and a host of other considerations which need to be considered when planning for such possibilities.
• Personal and Real Property Assignments and Deeds: transfer documents used to accomplish the appropriate titling of property in order to accomplish an orderly succession and to preserve any tax advantages or exemptions available on account of the manner in which title is held;
• Other Specialized Trusts: Different types of trusts used in varying circumstances to establish and address specific needs or concerns (i.e., protecting public assistance benefits, income and/or estate tax avoidance/deferral, etc.)
  • Special Needs Trusts;
  • Minor’s Trusts
  • Life Insurance Trusts;
  • Qualified Personal Residence Trusts (QPRT);
  • Family Limited Partnerships;
  • Charitable Trusts.

Often times clients are unable to travel without considerable effort or require urgent planning advice and document preparation due to sudden illness, a terminal condition or an upcoming vacation. We often visit our clients at their homes, in a hospital or rehabilitation center, or in assisted living or skilled nursing facilities in order to accomplish our client’s goals and the task we are assigned. We look out for our elder clients and treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Reviewing Your Estate Plane:

Many clients come to us for review of their existing estate plans. They have already set up the plan with a company, or previously with an attorney who has retired. We are very happy to review your estate plan for content, thoroughness, and compliance with current laws. The Following are some thoughts about estate plan review.

1. Updates May Be Required. You have already spent hard earned dollars on the original estate plan. The hope is that it is currently in good shape and needs no revisions. However, depending on when and where it was drafted, or who did the original work for you, and how experienced and thorough they were, you may need to make changes. Federal law and State law changes frequently, therefore updates may be necessary.

2. There is a Cost Associated With Review. Reviewing of an estate plan requires attorney time. Time is an attorney’s stock in trade. So, expect a cost for the study and analysis of your estate planning documents. A good review involves reading your entire trust and trust funding documents, wills, and powers of attorney for financial and health care affairs. You should expect to pay the attorney’s hourly rate for the review.

Many clients assume that every trust is the same and that the boilerplate language is similar nationwide. Actually, there are many variations in the expression of each trust provision. Trusts should be custom-drafted for each individual or couple, and most are. This means that in reading a trust for review, it is normal to encounter different methods of organizing the clauses and writing the provisions. In other words, while there may be a few similarities, no two trusts are alike. Therefore, the cost of review can be as much as half or more of the original cost incurred to set up the trust. As stated above, the law changes frequently, so there may be continuing costs to keep your trust up to date. However, the cost associated with the review is often offset by the savings yielded with timely revisions of the estate plan documents which eliminate or reduce income or estate taxes, or avert the need for court administration or petitions.

3. A Time to Reflect. The attorney will discuss his or her analysis of your estate plan with you. If changes are necessary, all needed or desired changes and updates should be made at one time to maintain continuity of the documents. This is a good time to reflect on what should be changed as well as what must be changed. Is your choice of successor trustee still sufficient? Is there a need to rearrange distribution because you loaned one or more of the beneficiaries money? Would a professional trustee be a good idea for you as you age and need help in handling your financial affairs? Are you considering leaving some part of your estate to charity. There are many tax advantages to charitable giving, and distributing a small part of your estate may have a significant impact on taxes.

A Word about Trusts vs. Wills. A trust is a contract between the creator of the trust (you) and the trustee (often you at the beginning). A will is created under long established laws and traditions, such that the document is often much simpler to execute. No funding is required for a valid will. Changes to wills are much simpler because the language used in wills is much more common, and thus, less complicated. Trusts are long and complicated documents that are based in both contract law and wills law. Therefore, maintenance of a trust is generally more involved than that of a will. A will is, therefore, less costly to you. However, the estate administration expense for wills is sometimes greater than trusts. In the final analysis, a trust is more expensive to establish and maintain, but often less expensive in the long term for your heirs. In most instances, a revocable living trust will result in considerable savings to your ultimate beneficiaries, although it may cost more to establish a trust than a will.

As always, we are here to help you. We appreciate your business and strive to keep it. Call us if your estate plan has not been reviewed within the last five years.