Cinnaminson Estate Planning Lawyer
Cherry Hill | Camden | Burlington | South Jersey | Philadelphia
Dopkin Law Firm serves a wide range of needs for individuals, families and business owners interested in preparing or revising an estate plan. We also advise executors and personal representatives in Pennsylvania or New Jersey probate proceedings. For more information about the scope of our estate planning and probate practice, contact us in Cherry Hill.
Do You Have a Basic Estate Plan in Place?
Only part of a basic estate plan deals with the distribution of your assets to your heirs and beneficiaries. That’s the last will and testament. The other components of a basic estate plan serve personal as well as family needs while you’re alive.
These include:
- Durable powers of attorney for financial and health care matters — these instruments designate trusted individuals to manage your financial and medical matters if a serious accident or illness leaves you unable to protect your own interests. They also can help avoid the need to appoint a guardian in the event of your incapacity.
- Advance directive to health care providers — this document clearly expresses your preference for life support or resuscitation under a range of extreme medical circumstances, and it can spare your family serious difficulties if your intentions are unknown or unclear in such an emergency.
- Depending on family circumstances and goals, a basic estate plan can also include a special needs trust for the future financial security of a disabled or vulnerable family member, or other trusts targeted to similarly specific objectives.
- For business owners, a basic estate plan should also include a management or ownership succession plan that takes due account of your spouse or children’s ability and interest in running the business and outlines a practical way of selling or winding up the enterprise if it will not survive you.
With a deep acumen in tax law and business law, our firm can also meet more advanced objectives, ranging from preserving Medicaid eligibility to managing anticipated state or federal estate or inheritance tax liability. Some estate planning tools can achieve multiple objectives at once, such as the charitable remainder trust, which allows the grantor to retain the benefits of ownership of an asset during lifetime while reducing the estate by its value upon transfer at death.
Advising Executors and Personal Representatives of Decedents’ Estates
Because of the importance of avoiding errors and complying with highly specific procedural requirements at all stages of the probate process, it makes sense to work with a trained legal advisor if you have been appointed the executor or personal representative of a decedent’s estate.
We offer comprehensive and dependable representation from the initial probate of the will to the eventual distribution of the estate’s assets. We also handle intestacy cases where the decedent passed away without a will.
Contact our law firm in Cherry Hill for more information about the estate planning and probate practice at Dopkin Law Firm.