Estate Planning

Congratulations! You have taken the first step in estate planning and that is realizing the continuing need to plan for your affairs. The next step is to call or email our office to request a Client Questionnaire where you will share confidential information with us so that we may better formulate a plan for you. We will also schedule an appointment to sit down to get to know each other. We will provide suggestions as to what you will need to do to achieve your estate planning goals. The initial client conference will take about forty-five minutes to one hour and is completely free of charge. If you are not satisfied that we are the right fit for you, there is no obligation to engage our firm for any further assistance.

If you decide to proceed with the engagement, you will sign an engagement letter. We will also schedule a second time to meet to sign your final documents. We will go over the drafts of the final documents with you prior to signing to make sure it is exactly what you want. We can make any desired changes. Once your documents are in final order, we will sign the documents in the presence of two witnesses and a notary. The second meeting usually also takes about one hour. The whole process, from start to finish, is usually about three to four weeks.

There is no charge for the initial consultation for estate planning services only.  We will charge our usual hourly rate for initial probate consultations and for all other consulting services, with a minimum of $475 per consultation.  For estate planning, we ask that you bring any prior Estate Planning documents and the completed Client Questionnaire. Try to fill out the Client Questionnaire as much as you can but don't get bogged down if you are unable to gather all the requested information before the initial consultation. This information will help us better formulate a plan based on your assets and goals. We will discuss the terms of your Wills, Revocable Trusts, Durable Financial Powers of Attorney, Health Care Powers of Attorney, and HIPAA Authorization Forms. For Probate Administration and Trust Administration, please bring original death certificates and the original Will or Trust, if applicable. We will provide a quote for our fees at the end of our initial consultation.

We believe that clients should be charged based on value that is delivered to them, not how much time the attorney spent working on their file. Our transparent, flat-rate pricing lets clients know exactly how much they will be spending. We do not bill our clients based on how many hours were spent on the file multiplied by an expensive hourly rate. We believe our flat-rate pricing encourages clients to spend more time to communicate with us so that we can get the job done right. After our initial meeting, we will provide a quote to you. We accept payment by check or credit card from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.

A Revocable Trust is an arrangement where your assets will be held by you, as Trustee, and managed however you like.  During your lifetime, you have complete control and access to the assets held in your Revocable Trust and taxes are reported in the same manner as they were before.  However, upon your death or incapacity, the Successor Trustee automatically steps in and starts managing the trust assets.  This swift transition will avoid the probate process, thus minimizing probate fees and avoiding public disclosure of the nature and disposition of your assets in Probate Court records.   There is very little downside to implementing a Revocable Trust.  However, it does cost a little bit more to prepare than a standalone Will.  Also, some additional time must be spent in re-titling your assets to your Revocable Trust.  I will look at both the size of your assets, but more importantly, the nature of your assets, to determine whether you would benefit from using a Revocable Trust.

If you die without a will or “intestate,” your assets will be distributed according to the default rules of the State of your domicile at the time of your death. In our experience, the intestate distribution is almost never exactly what the client would have wanted had he or she taken the time to execute an estate plan. Assets which are distributed to young children will be "turned over" to them at the young age of 21, instead of held in a separate trust for her benefit until he or she reaches a more appropriate age. Your Executor will be chosen according to a list of people related to you, which may or may not be what you would have wanted. It is a total crap-shoot as to whether your assets will be managed and distributed as you intended, had you undertaken appropriate planning.

We can't emphasize enough how important it is that young families with minor children implement a Will naming a guardian of their minor children.  If you and your spouse are not around to raise your children until the age of majority, a guardian must be appointed to have physical custody of your children until your children become adults.  North Carolina law accords “substantial weight” to the guardianship recommendation contained in a parent's Will. Without this critical recommendation, the Clerk of Court is left to determine the guardianship without the parent’s input, which would have been the single most important determining factor.  You may be able to avoid expensive and time-consuming court hearings by appointing a guardian under your Will.  You may also consider establishing trusts for the benefit of your young children, instead of leaving a substantial amount of assets to them which they may receive outright at age 21.

Your estate planning documents prepared in another state could still be okay, but they would most likely be governed under the laws of your prior state of residency. You may be able to amend these documents with a simple Codicil or Trust Amendment to bring them up to speed. At the very least, we generally always recommend executing a new Health Care Power of Attorney and Durable Financial Power of Attorney. State laws for these documents can vary widely and it is often difficult convincing third parties to accept out-of-state documents.

Adding an adult child to a bank account may cause some unintended problems. Upon your death, the surviving joint tenant will automatically receive whatever is leftover in the bank account, which may inadvertently disinherit your other children with regard to those assets. Your other children may find it unfair that the child who is a joint account holder received these extra assets. Also, your child's creditors may be able to reach these account assets and "drain" the account to satisfy a judgement against your child. As an alternative solution, you may want to appoint your adult child as your financial agent under your Durable Financial Power of Attorney. In this manner, he or she would be able to pay your bills for you, on your behalf, without incurring these undesirable consequences.