Get personalized estate planning services in Buffalo, NY 14204
Our New York estate planning lawyers 14204 are reputable for assisting clients with personalized estate planning services. It is our delight to have a personal discussion with you, giving you a comfortable environment to discuss your estate goals. How would you like your assets to be managed if something bad happens to you, or distributed when you inevitably pass away? What is the situation in your family? Do you have kids from another marriage and worried about their upkeep should something happen to you?
Our estate planning lawyers 14204 are here to help
Let us help you ensure that your wishes will be honored when you die. You get peace of mind knowing your loved ones will get the kind of life you wish for them even when you’re no longer around. This we can help you achieve through proper personalized estate planning. We would help you execute wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare proxy, and plan towards minimizing estate tax and probate, etc.
The time for estate planning is today. No one knows what tomorrow brings. To ensure your wishes are known and honored when you die, and that the financial future of your family is secured, call us today.
Essential Estate planning documents NY 14204
There are so many things to consider when estate planning, such as the distribution of your estate when you pass away, how it should be managed in the event you become incapacitated, minimizing probate and tax, etc.
To take care of these things, there are basic documents that should be included in your estate plan.
1. Will
A will, officially called a Last Will and Testament, is a document that bears your last wishes concerning the distribution of your estate. On it, you write down the names of your beneficiaries and what you want them to receive. New York wills are relatively simple to create. You can as well name a guardian for your minors, because children under 18 cannot inherit under 18.
However, a will must go through the probate court before your beneficiaries can inherit, and this may take a long time.
2. Revocable Living Trust
Relatively more complex than the will, a revocable living trust (or simply called a living trust) allows you to transfer property to beneficiaries outside of probate. This means the time and cost of probate are avoided. It costs more to execute a trust, but it is worth it in the long run. However, not all assets should go into a trust. With a proper understanding of your estate and wishes, we can combine a will and a living trust to simplify the asset transfer process while offering you and your loved ones the best benefits.
3. Durable Power of Attorney
In a durable power of attorney document, you authorize a trusted individual to handle your financial affairs on your behalf. Should you become incapacitated at any time, you would have someone making decisions and running your business for you. They are legally bound to always act in your best interest.
4. Medical Power of Attorney
Your healthcare surrogate or Medical power of attorney enables you authorize an individual to make medical decisions on your behalf when you become unable to make them yourself.
5. Living Will
Not to be confused with a last will, your living will is only effective until death. With it, you can lay down instructions for your end-of-life medical care. You can specify what you want done or not done when you fall into a delicate or critical condition. By so doing, you’d be ridding your loved ones of confusion and conflict of choice.
Planning for Tax and probate
If your estate value exceeds $5.85 million, then an estate tax valuing up to 16% of your estate will go to the state when you die. This is a sizable chunk that’s better off in the possession of your loved one rather than the State. To top it up, probate in New York is expensive. To help your family escape estate tax and probate, our estate planning lawyers who are also proficient in tax planning, would employ certain legal strategies aimed at tax and probate avoidance or minimization as the case may be.
We can do this through:
- Annual gifting
- Executing trusts (revocable and irrevocable) rather than a will
- Use of pour over wills
Estate planning lawyers near me 14204
Living around Buffalo, NY? Get peace of mind knowing that your estate and loved ones are secured. Contact us today to speak with one of our highly-skilled estate planning lawyers 14204, Buffalo, NY.
