The Law Offices of Ido Stern » Family Practice

Estate Planning for the Family

We prepare and advise clients regarding simple and complex wills, including guardianships and trust provisions, as well as generation-skipping transfers and charitable gifts. We also prepare durable powers of attorney and healthcare advance directives for our clients. These are simple, cost-effective ways through which clients can, in the event of disability or incompetence, allow their family members to manage their estate and to make difficult healthcare decisions.

We have extensive expertise in all types of estate planning. Our strategic counseling helps clients minimize inheritance taxes and maximize control and flexibility of assets during their lifetime and during the disposition of the estate.

Our services include assisting clients in establishing:

• Family programs for annual giving
• Revocable or living trusts, including pour-over wills and credit shelter trust provisions.
• Irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), for clients to receive and administer life insurance proceeds.
• Grantor retained interest trusts (GRITs), grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) and grantor retained unitrusts (GRUTs), to transfer property from one generation to the next, while allowing grantors to receive income from the assets during their lifetime.
• Qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), to transfer residences to the next generation, while allowing grantors to continue living in their current residence.
• Education trusts, to allow for lifetime and testamentary dispositions towards children's and grandchildren's education expenses.
• Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements to protect an inheritance and complex estate from potentially adverse parties.
• Charitable remainder unitrusts (CRUTs), charitable remainder annuity trusts (CRATs) and charitable lead trusts (CLUTs/CLATs), to transfer property or income interests to qualified charities, while retaining certain rights in the gifted property.
• Tax-exempt charitable family foundations, to make lifetime and testamentary deductible charitable bequests and establish a charitable family legacy that can be managed by future generations.