Estate Planning
Protecting and securing your wealth is essential to ensuring that your needs, and those of your family members or beneficiaries, are adequately satisfied now and in the future. The Callender Law Firm is committed to helping clients safeguard their assets, and minimize the negative effects of taxation and associated costs, through effective, innovative, and thoughtful estate planning specifically tailored to our client’s goals. Our principal goal is to work with you to design and implement individualized strategies that satisfy your estate planning and wealth transfer goals.
Estate Planning in the COVID-19 Era. The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in an era of global economic distress, serious concerns for safety, health, and well-being of young and old alike, and tremendous uncertainty for the future. Now more than ever before, individuals recognize the need to create estate plans … or, update their existing estate planning strategies to better benefit from changes in asset values and state and Federal tax rules brought on by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Now is the time to act. We are here to help! Do not delay, Contact us today!
What is Estate Planning & Why You Need an Estate Plan. Contrary to popular myth, estate planning is for everyone. It is not just for wealthy individuals. Estate Planning is a legal process by which an individual organizes his or her financial and personal estates by implementing a suitable combination of specific legal instruments for carrying out the individual’s present and future goals (including in the event of incapacity or death) for:
- management, control, protection, and distribution of financial assets, real property, and personal property, and
- designation of guardians and ensuring medical directives are implemented.
You need an Estate Plan if any of the following is true:
- You want to get your affairs in order and create a comprehensive plan to manage affairs in event of death or disability.
- You want to provide for and protect a spouse.
- You want to provide for and protect children and/ or grandchildren.
- Upon your death, you desire to automatically transfer real estate to a specified beneficiary or beneficiaries without the need for probate.
- You want to reduce your estate taxes.
- You want to avoid probate.
- You want to plan for the transfer and survival of a family business.
- You want to protect your assets from lawsuits or creditors.
- You’re getting married and want to protect your assets from a failed marriage.
- You want to protect your children’s inheritance from the possibility of failed marriages.
- You want to protect your children’s inheritance in the event of a surviving spouse’s remarriage.
- You want to plan for a child with disabilities or special needs.
- In case of disability, you want to avoid a conservatorship.
- You want to preserve privacy of matters, in case of disability or at death, from business competitors, dishonest persons and curiosity seekers.
- You want to disinherit a family member.
In Texas and New York, an estate plan consisting of a last will & testament, one or more trusts, Transfer on Death Deeds (Texas clients only), durable power of attorney, medical power of attorney, and physician directives satisfy the estate planning goals of many of our clients. While New York does not have a Transfer on Death Deed statute, we accomplish the same effect (of seamlessly transferring real estate upon death without need for probate) by employing additional instruments. We are present and available to assist you with your estate plan.
As your attorney and counselor, Callender Law Firm will help you devise a comprehensive and individualized plan that may include, as appropriate, one or more of the following:
- Drafting of a will
- Contesting a will
- Contractual wills
- Living wills
- Powers of attorney
- Pre-martial agreements
- Post-martial agreements
- Revocable living trusts
- Amendable trusts
- Spendthrift trusts
- Support trusts
- Pour-over wills
- Unfunded revocable life insurance trusts
- Irrevocable life insurance trusts
- Charitable trusts
- Gift planning
- Tax planning
- Business Planning
- Family Limited Partnerships
- IRAs
- Estate Administration & Probate
- Guardianship Administration
Contact us today, schedule an appointment for a free initial consultation, and take the first steps to establishing a lasting relationship you can count on for personalized attention to your goals and competent, reliable estate planning and probate legal services. We are licensed in Texas and New York.
Probate Legal Services
Settling the estate of a deceased loved one can be a very complicated, time-consuming, confusing, and emotional process. Callender Law Firm’s experienced attorneys assist clients throughout the entire probate and estate administration process. Probate is the legal process in which a document, purporting to be the ‘Last Will & Testament’ of a deceased person, is proven in a Court of competent jurisdiction to be a valid Last Will & Testament. Until a Will is successfully probated and declared legally valid, property transfers cannot be legally made under that document.
Under Texas law, a Will must be probated within 4 years of the testator’s (deceased person who made the Will) death, otherwise that person is deemed to have died intestate (i.e., without leaving a valid will). Sometimes, Wills are contested as being invalid by one or more family member who might be dissatisfied with his or her gift under the will, or who might have a very legitimate reason why the will is invalid. A will contest generally makes the probate process more lengthy, complicated, and more expensive. Our attorneys will assist you with even the most complex probate cases. We are here to relieve your burden and make the process as seamless as possible.
Contact us today, schedule an appointment for a free initial consultation, and take the first steps to establishing a lasting relationship you can count on for personalized attention to your goals and competent, reliable estate planning and probate legal services. We are licensed in Texas and New York.
