Estate Planning

Accounting for every objective isn’t easy—but it’s essential.

Striving for the satisfaction our clients experience having put together their ideal estate plan makes this serious effort well worth the time. Once completed, you can be confident knowing you have attended to one of the most essential parts of your financial planning. A properly documented estate plan—executed at any stage of life—makes for simpler, economical changes as time passes (should your details and desires change.)

The process begins with a review of your current documents—no matter what state your record-keeping may be in. (We have seen our share of old “sweetheart wills” and aim to adapt and evolve them.) Next, we embark on a detailed discussion of your family, charitable interests, and intentions for the assets you’ve accumulated. We’ll work with you to help you understand the implications of structures such as:

• Probate
• Revocable Trust
• Irrevocable Trust
• Powers of trustees
• Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust
• Health Care Proxies
• Living Wills

During this planning phase, we frame the current financial environment through the lens of your particular family and ultimate objectives.

Next, it’s time for personal reflection. We’ll ask you to take some time to consider things like the rate of inheritance for your heirs, possible successor trustees, etc. We encourage you to discuss these matters with trusted family, friends, or counsel. We then reconnect to explore your choices and point out all the financial advantages and potential drawbacks.

Because every individual and family situation is unique, we don’t have a cookie-cutter approach to estate planning. We take as much time—as many appointments together— as may be required to make sure you know exactly what you want and need before you’re “on the clock” with your estate planning attorney.

Speaking of attorneys, over the course of decades in the business, we have worked with many of the reputable estate planning firms in the Northeast (and beyond). If you have a current relationship, we will coordinate seamlessly with them. If you’d like a referral, we’re happy to provide one. But, to be clear, we are adamant about accepting no referral fees, nor consideration from any estate planning attorneys in order to maintain our independence on our clients’ behalf—an unusual distinction in today’s environment.

Once you receive drafts of your documents from your attorney, you’ll forward them to us. We will review them thoroughly and then book a time to make sure they reflect—philosophically—precisely what you want before you execute them in final form.

Many clients choose to execute the documents at our offices so that we can immediately fund trusts, change beneficiaries—and undertake any actions indicated by your estate planning. This way, there are no delays in putting your planning into action immediately.

This meticulous, flexible, and personal process results in the kind of planning that allows our successful clients to enjoy their full lives—confident that their ultimate legacies and wishes will be properly executed and financially supported.