Probate
Probate is a court-supervised process for distributing the individually owned assets of a deceased person. Assets are distributed to beneficiaries in accordance to the instructions written in the person’s will. Upon the death of a trust maker our law firm offers legal services to your executor. The executor is responsible for seeing that the assets of the estate are distributed properly and in a timely manner. An overview of the valuable guidance we provide includes:
- Review of the executed will
- Gathering of all assets of the estate
- Explanation of executor’s responsibilities
- Estate tax analysis
- Collection of death benefits
- Creation of sub-trusts
Trust Administration
If revocable living trust planning is the process of designing a playbook, trust administration occurs when the playbook is put into action. The process begins with an event that triggers a provision in your revocable living trust based estate plan, such as incapacity or death. The plan provides for the individuals you designated in your plan documents to step into action and execute according to your instructions.
Trust administration can be complex and the people you have designated must have competent and experienced counsel to guide them through the process. They must make important decisions ‘ sometimes quickly ‘ and they need help to make them wisely. They may need to prepare inventories of your property, prepare tax returns, or sign other important documents on your behalf. Ultimately they must divide and distribute your property to those individuals or charities you identified in your will or trust agreement.
The trust administration process carries a lot of responsibilities. We can help guide your loved ones through the process as sensitively and completely as possible, and will try to make it as straightforward and efficient as possible.
