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Law Offices of DION G. DYER
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Estate Planning
Our core discipline is planning -- for both estates and businesses. Good planning requires coordination -- both in the disposition to various asset classes, and in a collegial relationship between the attorney and client that identifies and focuses on the client's circumstances and personal objectives.
Living trusts are the cornerstone of most estate plans today but fall short of achieving optimal results if only used to avoid probate and to save taxes. They are more powerful than that and offer many other advantages including asset protection. But they are often overused and abused in moderate sized estates (less than $1 million) with simple family situations, where other devices, such as community property with right of survivorship and remainder deeds, will often provide most of the benefits with less expense and bother than a living trust.
Pension assets, including IRA and 401K investments, now constitute a major portion of many estates. To a large degree this is the result of the pension vesting requirement enacted by ERISA in the mid-1980's. A well thought out plan gives careful consideration to ERISA's rules for minimum distributions and designation of beneficiaries, which changed substantially in 2001 and 2002.
Different asset classes need different strategies to properly impliment your desired disposition of your property. Your will and trust ordinarily control the inheritance of your real property, investments and business assets. But independently and regardless of your will and trust, joint tenancy assets and other survivorship assets will pass directly to the survivor, and your life insurance and pension funds will pass directly to the named beneficiaries. The failure to coordinate these bequests is a major error in many estate plans, and can seriously undermine the plan and leave heirs with substantially disproportionate inheritances. It can also create liquidity problems, by leaving insufficient cash assets in the hands of the executor or trustee to pay debts, last expenses and any taxes that may be due.
To address these points, we prepare all appropriate estate planning documents, including wills, living trusts, durable powers of attorney, powers of appointment, and marital property agreements. More sophisticated estate plans will often include family limited partnerships and irrevocable trusts such as retained annuity, charitable, and life insurance trusts. We also provide tax advice about gift and estate taxes, as well as income tax matters involving estates and trusts, and are available to prepare all necessary estate, gift and income tax returns.
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