What Is Estate Planning?

Estate Planning is the process whereby a person develops a plan and prepares documents to conserve, protect, and distribute estate assets before and after death for the benefit of loved ones and, possibly, charities. 

Estate Planning allows you to take into consideration the effect of state and federal tax and administrative laws and regulations on the ultimate disposition of your assets.

Estate Planning can also involve assuring that your assets are available for your care if you become unable to manage your affairs yourself during your lifetime.

Do I have an Estate?

If you own a home, have some savings, or own any goods such as a car or furniture, then, yes, you have an estate.

You should have an estate plan if:

• you care who inherits your property;
• you want to gift your assets prior to your death;
• you want remain in control of your health care decisions;
• you have minor or disabled children; and/or
• you want to avoid the public proceedings of a guardianship and/or probate proceeding.

How We Can Help You:

We know that your estate is a reflection of years of hard work, sacrifice, careful planning and good-decision making. That's why we are committed to helping you develop an estate plan that is tailored to meet your unique needs and will get the right property to the right people at the right time so that your lifetime wishes can best be accomplished.

We are committed to providing our clients with practical solutions to estate planning and asset protection concerns and understand that every estate, regardless of size, is an important one.

Ms. Pizzolato handles all aspects of estate planning, including wills, trusts, succession planning, asset protection, wealth preservation, planning for incapacity and/or disability, and minimizing or eliminating federal and state tax liability.

For clients who wish to avoid probate and protect against incapacity, a revocable living trust is available to hold legal title to the client’s assets during the client’s lifetime.  Upon the client’s death, the trustee of the trust simply continues to handle those assets without pause and distribute the assets to the client’s loved ones without the costs, delays and publicity associated with probate proceedings.

We are committed to assisting you in effectively transferring your assets and maximizing available tax planning using a variety of additional methods including:

• making use of the federal and state gift, estate, and generation-skipping tax exclusion to transfer assets
• trust agreements (including credit shelter, Crummey, gift, QPRTs, QDOTs, QTIPs, GRATs, irrevocable life insurance, spendthrift trusts and others)
• family limited partnerships
• charitable remainder trusts
• living trusts and life estates
• business succession and liquidity planning

Business Succession Planning:

In addition to estate planning services, we offer business owners the following specific services:

• Planning for management succession and asset conservation through multiple generations at a minimum tax cost
• Assisting business owners in allocating benefits among their children regardless of their involvement in the business
• Counseling on the short- and long-term estate implications of selling a business or restructuring it
• Counseling on recapitalizations, gift programs and other techniques for shifting value during an owner's lifetime or separating control from value
• Developing and implementing exit strategies from the business for inactive family members
• Planning for liquidity in the event of an owner's death
• Preparing buy/sell, restrictive stock and employment agreements
• Structuring life insurance and benefit programs to minimize tax costs

There are many alternatives and we will explain each relevant alternative to you.

Creating Your Estate Plan:

This firm handles a large variety of estate planning solutions ranging from Simple Estate Planning to Complex Estate Planning for clients located in New York, New Jersey and Florida. 

              Simple Estate Planning  

• Preparation of simple Wills, Trusts and related documents
• Living Wills and Healthcare Surrogates
• Durable Powers of Attorney
• Designation of Pre-Need Guardian
• Deeds
• Settlement of decedents' estates
• Probate and Estate Administration

            Complex Estate Planning

• Pre-mortem Estate Planning
• Preparation and review of Wills, Revocable Living Trusts and related documents
• Family Limited Partnerships
• Gift Planning, including Irrevocable Insurance and other Trusts
• Business Succession Planning
• Charitable Planned Giving and Trusts
• Estate Tax Planning
• Postmortem Estate Planning
• Preparation and review of federal and state estate tax returns
• Review of postmortem elections
• Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax Planning
• Probate and Trust Administration

How do you begin?

Five steps to Creating Your Estate Plan

Step One:        Client delivers to our office a completed

Confidential Estate Planning Questionnaire . (click the logo to download this form in Adobe format) 

This form may be submitted via email or regular mail.  This firm must obtain an original executed (page six) of this document before any review of the document by this firm will begin.  Presenting this firm with your completed questionnaire does not in any way establish an attorney client relationship, it only secures that your information is to be held in strict confidence by this firm.  A retainer agreement can be provided to you upon request prior to submitting this form or at the conclusion of your first meeting with Ms. Pizzolato.

Step Two:        Our office will contact client to arrange for a meeting or telephone conference with Ms. Pizzolato to discuss her recommendations based on a comprehensive review of your assets, general situation, and personal goals.

During this meeting, Ms. Pizzolato will help you define your estate planning objectives and discuss with you what she considers to be the most effective means of achieving those objectives and provide you with a this firm’s schedule of fees for creating your estate documents.

Step Three:      Following the Initial Conference you will be contacted by our office to review any questions we may have concerning your estate. Once we are comfortable that all necessary information has been collected, you will receive drafts of your estate plan documents. At this time, we will have a telephone conference, email communication or a meeting with you to review your documents in detail, explaining each document.

Step Four: You will then make an appointment to return to our office to have your “Signing Ceremony.” Once your estate documents are executed, we will provide you with an “Estate Planning Portfolio”. This portfolio not only contains a copy of all of your estate plan documents which we prepared for you, but also vital, important information for you and your family’s use of the documents.

Step Five: Relax, your estate plan is now in place and your estate will transfer to your heirs as you wished.

Of course it is of equal importance to regularly review your estate plan and asset protection strategies to account for changes in law or the acquisition or disposition of assets.

The costs of failing to update your estate documents are typically greater than the costs of keeping your estate plan and asset protection strategies current.

Don't delay planning for your future and the future of your family. Please feel free to contact our office if you or a family member are interested in retaining this firm to assist you in creating a will, trust or other estate planning document tailored to your needs, or simply follow these five steps and begin the process of developing your estate plan.

Confidential Estate Planning Questionnaire