Would you say your main concern related to distribution of all you worked your butt off to accumulate and enjoy is having documents created? Or, really, you desire the actual results and impact you will make on your family, charity or world? You decide for yourself but we believe the latter makes most sense.

Attorneys create estate documents. We are not attorneys.

Just so you know, the persons or entities you name as beneficiaries in your estate or trust documents often receive far less than anticipated. Why? You can blame tax law changes. But that means no one was reviewing your affairs year after year and making appropriate updates. During your life, everything was working smoothly. But then, after your death, heirs are picking up the pieces left behind. In our experience, your trustee or executor (who has now become a fiduciary) did not seek counsel, did not understand or ignored the terms of your Trust or Will or there were some assets that you owned that were not titled correctly. Failure to properly oversee your financial affairs has left your spouse or children to suffer the consequence.

Frankly, we have the better position to see what could have been corrected:

• Flawed documents
• Poorly chosen administrators and trustees (those you chose to carry out your decisions)
• Loss of preferred tax elections
• Improperly listing a trust as a beneficiary of annuities and retirement plan accounts
• Failure to consider the impact of receiving assets by individual heirs
• Family conflict resulting from lack of perceived fairness
• Flawed business liquidation/succession planning
• Failure to weigh the true value and interrelation of assets and the tax implications
• And a litany of additional issues

What should have been a celebration of your hard effort and its positive impact became hurt feelings, litigation or worse.

If you will allow, we accept the privilege of sorting through language in documents as we look for ways to accomplish your real desires. We focus on reducing taxes on heirs and beneficiaries. We coordinate with the attorney to “get it exactly as you desire.”

Everyone who has a dollar at death leaves an estate.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU!
Who will experience the impact? What “hand print” do you truly desire to leave on your family and the world around you?

Rather than the creation of documents, we embrace the responsibility for coordinating the impact and results your desire. Again, we are not attorneys, but we work closely to ensure the language of documents will accomplish your results.

We can help you! Contact elizabeth.simeone.ea@gmail.com