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Estate Planning

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

- Benjamin Franklin

Crafting a proper estate plan ensures that you will be taken care of during your incapacity and your loved ones will be taken care of after your death. HMS Law Group LLP has experience handling all aspects of estate planning with the heart and sensitivity required to treat each client's situation with the individual attention it deserves.

Estate Planning

To ensure your loved ones inherit your estate and avoid costly probate expenses, taxes, and delays, an estate plan must be properly structured, funded, and monitored throughout your lifetime. HMS can assist with:

  • Drafting wills and revocable trusts for all size estates
  • Advising clients on trust funding and beneficiary designations in line with one's overall estate plan
  • Providing protection for incapacity through the use of Advance Health Care Directives and Durable Powers of Attorney
  • Problem-solving to reduce or eliminate estate tax liability
  • Counseling clients on issues surrounding business succession planning
  • Utilizing advanced planning tools when appropriate, including irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), family limited partnerships (FLPs), and charitable remainder trusts (CRTs)

Charitable Planning

HMS attorneys regularly donate their time and resources to local and regional charities. Consequently, the attorneys at HMS are intimately familiar with the variety of ways to effect charitable intent within a client's estate plan. From outright gifts to charitable remainder trusts and private foundations, HMS enjoys helping clients ensure that their estate plans provide for their favorite charities, too.

Special Needs Planning

Many of our clients are parents of children with special needs. Special needs planning ensures that a loved one with special needs can benefit from a family's inheritance without losing eligibility for certain government programs. By utilizing a special needs trust, whether as a stand-alone trust or as part of a family's revocable trust planning, our clients ensure that their loved ones are provided for with dignity and minimal court involvement.

Special needs planning also ensures that family members remain involved in a loved one's health care and finances when that loved one has special needs. By working with a family's physicians, HMS attorneys can help families avoid the expense and intrusion of formal conservatorship proceedings.

Art Law

With a unique penchant for the arts, HMS offers knowledgeable advice for both the artist and the art collector. HMS attorneys have assisted clients in establishing private foundations and endowments for the arts, as well as donating their appreciated art collections in a manner that accounts their tax liability. In addition, careful drafting by HMS attorneys ensures that treasured pieces of art are passed to loved ones in a manner that minimizes squabbling and encourages certainty.

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