Estate planning is a big stage in a person’s life. Our estate planning attorneys Long Island understand this and will help you create a comprehensive estate plan that protects your best interests and gives you peace of mind for the future.
Having extensive knowledge working with hundreds of Long Island residents, we can help you make well-informed decisions concerning your asset distribution, ensuring that complications are minimized when you pass away.
There may also become a time when you cannot manage your financial affairs yourself because of dementia, Alzheimer’s, or some other disability. To prepare for such a time, our estate planning attorneys will carry out incapacity planning so that you have peace of mind knowing your affairs would be in the hands of a competent and trusted individual of your choosing.
It is our approach to first understand your kind of estate and what laws, taxes, provisions, or complexities may apply so that we know how best to plan towards them.
Our aim is to create an estate plan that works best for you and your loved ones.
Contact us today for expert assistance from our estate planning attorneys Long Island.
Essential estate planning documents we will help you establish
1. Will for asset transfer
A will, formally called a last will and testament, is a basic estate planning document on which you express your wishes concerning how you want your assets distributed when you are gone. You can decide to leave assets for anyone of your choice, including your spouse, parents, children, grandchildren, friends, charity, or even strangers. However, your will must be written in the right terms to say exactly what you mean. This is where an estate planning attorney comes in.
Your attorney will help you draft your will using the standard terms as recognized by Long Island law to avoid things going in a way you didn’t plan for when you die. They also help you determine what assets you should address in your will and those best left out.
2. Durable Power of Attorney for incapacity planning
As one gets older, there is a chance to suffer aging diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer’s, and the likes. Things like this makes one incompetent to make reliable decisions for themselves. It may also be due to a disability, accident, or sickness such that renders them unconscious. In such a situation the person is declared legally incapacitated. But such a person may need someone to make decisions on their behalf, such as in matters concerning their finances, business, or healthcare.
To this end, your lawyer can create some documents for you.
Durable financial power of attorney: A durable financial power of attorney is a document on which you appoint an agent (attorney-in-fact) to manage your financial affairs in the event you become unable to manage them yourself.
Durable medical power of attorney: A medical power of attorney or healthcare surrogate is a document on which you appoint an agent to make healthcare decisions on your behalf when you become unable to do so yourself.
3. Living trust for asset transfer and probate avoidance
In addition to transferring assets quickly, living trusts offer other benefits like probate avoidance. They are best for complex estates since the court, which makes things more complex, will no longer be involved in the asset transfer. You can also name a successor trustee who will manage the trust assets on your behalf in the event something happens to you.
4. Living will for possible end-of-life situations
Also called an advance healthcare directive, a living will allows you make decisions on what medical actions you would want taken when you are in an end-of-life situation.
Other things our estate planning attorneys Long Island NY can hep you with
Guardianship designation
If you leave behind minors, these ones are not allowed to inherit by NY laws. To protect their interests, your lawyer will help establish guardianship in your will, whereby your appointed individual will manage assets for your minors until they come of age to inherit.
If you also have an elderly loved one who needs to be looked after because of their disability, we also represent you in guardianship application.
Planning to avoid huge taxes
NY, if the sum total of your taxable estate exceeds $5.93 million at the time of your death, an estate tax up to 16% will be imposed on your estate. If you wish for all your money to go to your loved ones rather than the state, then you may have to reduce your taxable estate below that value. Our estate planning attorneys Long Island can help you do this by holding assets in trusts or by gifting.
Get peace of mind
Contact us today to protect your best interests and those of your loved ones.
