SERVICES

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Personal Planning for Death or Disability

 Estate planning includes choosing who will receive your assets in the event of your death (your "beneficiaries") and who will manage your estate. It may include establishing trusts for your beneficiaries if it would be unwise or problematic for them to receive money outright immediately for any reason. This may include their age or inability to handle money, creditor problems, or the possibility of disrupting public benefits they may receive.  

If you have minor children, you should choose the guardians who will care for them in the event of a sudden death or incapacity of both parents. 

For many clients, estate planning also includes taking steps to minimize estate and/or inheritance taxes, sometimes for multiple generations.  

 Incapacity planning allows you to choose who will make your financial and health care decisions if you are unable to care for yourself.  Through durable financial powers of attorney and health care powers of attorney, including living will declarations (or "advance medical directives"), you can designate individuals to act for you and avoid the alternative of court-supervised guardianships and conservatorships.

Revocable living trusts can be used to avoid court-supervised probate, keeping your affairs private after your death, and to allow for seamless management of your assets in the event of your incapacity.

Types of  estate planning tools and techniques we offer include the following: • Business Succession Plans • Charitable Giving & Planning • Durable Powers of Attorney • Estate & Transfer Tax Planning, Including Credit Shelter or Bypass Trusts for Married Clients • Family Limited Liability Companies & Partnerships • Generation-Skipping Trusts • Gift Tax Return Preparation • Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs) • Health Care Powers of Attorney with Living Will Declarations (Advance Medical Directives) • Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs) • Irrevocable Trusts for Lifetime Gifts to Minor Children • Lifetime Trust Funding • Revocable Living Trusts • Qualified Personal Residence Trusts • Special Needs /Supplement Trusts • Testamentary Trusts • Wills for (Single & Married Persons)  

We prepare marital agreements, both pre and post nuptial.  A marital agreement can be an important estate planning tool.  A surviving spouse is one of only two individuals who has rights under Virginia law to make claims against your estate that may disrupt your estate plan (the other individual being a child in certain circumstances).  The amount of these spousal claims can be significant.  A marital agreement can limit or completely eliminate a surviving spouse's right to exercise spousal claims.  A premarital agreement can also address the distribution of property upon divorce and the payment of support payments upon divorce.  We can only represent one spouse in preparing a marital agreement.