Trust Administration And Probate

Our Firm Provides Comprehensive Trust Administration, Probate And Post-Mortem Planning Legal Services To Individual And Corporate Fiduciaries Facing The Task Of Administering A Decedent’s Estate Or Trust.

We provide advice regarding:

• The preparation of probate applications, inventories and accountings with the Clerk of Court.
• Advice designed to mitigate exposure to federal estate tax, fiduciary income taxes, generation-skipping transfer taxes, and other potential tax liabilities.
• Guidance in securing appraisals for investments, real estate, boats, airplanes, closely-held business interests, and other property of value owned by the decedent.
• Guidance regarding post-mortem disclaimer planning.
• Guidance regarding the management of creditors’ claims and the recovery of property owned by the decedent or the estate.
• Advice regarding the preparation of, or the actual preparation of, federal and North Carolina estate, fiduciary income, and other tax-related returns.
• Advice regarding the timing of the payment of debts and estate and trust administrative expenses in order to minimize the exposure of an estate, trust or the decedent’s beneficiaries to the imposition of tax liability.
• Communications with the Courts, the IRS and NC Department of Revenue to ensure the estate or trust remains in compliance with required filing deadlines.
• Advice, where appropriate, to surviving spouses, family members or other beneficiaries regarding the most efficient methods of transferring asset ownership.
• The preparation and filing of all documents to formally conclude the administration of a decedent’s estate. Guidance on judicial and non-judicial modifications of irrevocable trusts and decanting to new trusts.

What Is Probate And When Is Probate Triggered In North Carolina?

Probate is the court-supervised process over which personal assets are transferred out of the individual names into the names of their heirs or beneficiaries after death. Whether you go through probate or not will be determined by the level of estate planning. If the descendent died with no will and no other estate planning was done, his assets must go through probate. If he did proper planning and the assets were designated to go to individuals properly, then those assets will not go through probate…Read More

What Are Some Of The Common Reasons That Disputes Arise In The Probate Process? What Are Some Of The Best Ways To Resolve Those Disputes?

In my experience, there are only two or three things that truly create a hostile relationship and contention within a family during an estate administration process. What can lead to litigation in many instances is when one beneficiary feels they are entitled to more, or something different, than the other beneficiaries, even though the estate plan may make no distinction whatsoever. Perhaps a child stayed close to home and was the primary care provider for a parent while the siblings were elsewhere…Read More