Trusts & Estates

Fulfilling Your Estate Planning Objectives.

OVERVIEW

At HDRB&B, we help you transfer wealth to the next generation in a tax-efficient manner. Our Trusts & Estates Department provides each client with strategic, innovative and personalized counseling focused on protecting assets for loved ones, often through the use of trusts, while minimizing estate and gift taxes.

Services

  • Estate Planning
  • Preparing Wills
  • Creating Trusts: Gift, Insurance and Dynasty Trusts, GRATs, QPRTs, SLATs and Supplemental Needs Trusts
  • Drafting Health Care Directives and Financial Powers of Attorney
  • Federal and State Estate & Gift Tax Planning
  • Facilitating the Resolution of Disputes between Fiduciaries and Beneficiaries
  • Estate Administration
  • Probate
  • Interfacing with Financial Institutions
  • Coordinating Payment of Taxes
  • Advising Executors and Trustees
  • Advocating for Beneficiaries
  • Elder Law and Special Needs Planning

Representative Matters

  • Assisted a couple with young children in drafting Wills, Health Care Documents and powers of Attorney that named guardians to raise the children, trustees to manage the assets for the children and protected the assets from children’s future creditors and predators.
  • Facilitated a part gift/part sale transaction of a family owned business to a trust for one of the clients’ three children, while creating an estate plan that equalized the other children’s shares to take into account the gift/sale transaction.
  • Strategized with clients and insurance agent to construct a Dynasty Trust to ensure that the family’s wealth would remain protected for future generations, from the heirs themselves, from spouses of the heirs, as well as other creditors and predators; while making sure that the insurance proceeds could be used to pay any future estate taxes that are owed.
  • Represented beneficiaries of a trust in dealing with a corporate fiduciary to increase monthly distributions to the beneficiaries and to get the trust’s assets invested more in line with the beneficiaries wishes.
  • Worked with co-executors of an Estate to market and sell pieces of commercial property in order to maximize wealth for beneficiaries of the Estate. Coordinated with appraisers to determine fair market value of assets in the Estate and formed the trusts necessary to hold real estate interests and other Estate assets going forward.  Filed estate tax returns and obtained release and refunding bonds from the beneficiaries.

Trusts & Estates Blog

  • 05.01.23 Should We Transfer Home Ownership?
    The concerns around should your transfer your house to your kids’ names so that the government doesn’t take it when you need care, is a question I get asked regularly as an Elder Law attorney. Learn more about why you might not want to make this move in the most recent blog post from Trusts & Estates, and Elder Law attorney, Allison J. Busch, Esq. Read more >>
  • 2.13.23 Maximize Your Legacy – Now is the Time to Consider a Gift
    Under current tax law, an individual can make lifetime gifts and/or bequests upon death totaling $12.92 million, and married couples can transfer nearly $26 million to heirs, without triggering gift or estate tax. Now is the time to benefit from this current exemption. Read more>>
  • 11.8.21 What is Durable Power of Attorney
    Under a durable Power of Attorney, you, as principal, appoint an Agent, also referred to as an Attorney-In-Fact, to act on your behalf, both while you are competent and should you lose your mental capacity. Your Agent can pay bills, sign contracts, manage finances and do many of life’s tasks that you handle for yourself. Read more>>
  • 06.4.21 Planning for Long Term Care: Financial Considerations and Eligibility for Medicaid
    As an elder law attorney, I hear these questions pretty regularly. The concerns around long-term care are understandable—not only is it difficult and overwhelming to find appropriate care for an aging parent or an ill spouse, but the financial issues are complicated and anxiety-provoking. Learn more about the importance of planning for long term care in this most recent blog post from Elder Law attorney, Allison Busch Esq. Read more>>
  • 05.18.21 The Importance of Trusts in Estate Planning
    The possibility of a reduction in the federal estate tax exemption has sent clients scrambling to fund trusts for future generations that will minimize estate tax. Learn more about the importance of trusts as vehicles for protecting assets for your family in this most recent blog post from Trusts & Estates Department Chair, Naim Bulbulia. Read more>>
  • 05.05.21 The Senate Introduced a New Estate and Gift Tax Law
    The “For the 99.5% Act” was introduced to Congress on March 25, 2021. If passed, it will change the estate planning landscape drastically, beginning on January 1, 2022. In a nutshell, those with estates over $3.5 million ($7 million for a married couple) need to act in 2021 in order to save millions of dollars in transfer taxes. Read more>>
  • 11.19.20 Now is the Time to Consider a Gift
    Under current federal estate and gift tax law, a married couple can gift up to $23.16 million ($11.58 per person), and that gift, as well as all future appreciation on the gift, will pass generation to generation completely free from transfer taxes (i.e. no gift taxes, estate taxes, or generation-skipping taxes). This amount is likely to be lowered by the federal government in the future. Acting now, however, will ensure that the exemption is used. Read more>>

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