Careful estate planning is the key to ensuring that your wishes concerning the manner in which your property is passed down to your intended beneficiaries is respected. But is it really enough to know that your wishes will be carried out? Our clients universally require more than simply the preparation of a Will document dictating their instructions and for that reason we take the time to sit down with each client and have a conversation (and perhaps several conversations) about:
- Maintaining control of their assets as they become more elderly;
- Strategies for ensuring that they will be looked after in the manner they would wish if a time should come when they can no longer look after themselves due to illness, an accident or other reason.
- Address tax issues with respect to assets and the opportunities to reduce probate fees by assets structuring during life;
- Ensuring that the greatest benefit from your hard earned assets will pass to your intended beneficiaries through structuring and planning during life;
- Existing and possible future financial obligations to third parties;
- Minimizing the likelihood and risk of will challenges orother litigation through careful consideration of the particular family dynamics in their own family as well as more general legal considerations and concerns that arise in this area of practice; and
- A varied assortment of individualized concerns that each individual client raises according to their own perspective and concerns.
One day it will be time to carry out and execute that carefully constructed estate planning regime. The person or people you have appointed in your testamentary documents must carry out your plan carefully and with the greatest of loyalty and faith to your estate while navigating the estate laws, income tax laws, perhaps family laws and a host of other legal considerations. Properly administering your estate plan by carrying out the wishes in your will and properly exercising discretion and judgment where required will be crucial to ensuring that the process runs smoothly without incurring extra expenses that squander your assets or prolong the payment to the people you intended to benefit.
We are here to provide assistance with navigating this process whether it require a formal probate application to the Estate Court to have the Will approved by the Estate Court or whether it can be administered in a less formalized manner with or without the need for such approval by the Estate Court.