DISPUTES & LITIGATION, PLANNING, AND ADMINISTRATION
Will and Estate Disputes and Litigation
Salichs Pou & Associates has experience in assisting families with resolving their disputes, whether they stem from an ambiguous will, a disappointed heir, a misdeed by a fiduciary, controversy over property rights, or tax disputes. We offer our unique experience in assisting clients with litigation involving fiduciary issues, and we are not restrained from handling unusual or difficult cases.
Estate Planning
Our firm provides personal estate planning services such as preparing wills, trusts, and other documents. Our goal is to understand the client’s priorities and goals, and to inform on the risks and benefits of such priorities and goals. We provide these services through a flat fee arrangement to permit you to budget for our legal services. The flat fee arrangement includes an initial meeting to discuss your personal situation and estate planning goals, preparing initial document, a follow-up review meeting and a final document execution meeting.
Estate Administration
Our firm assists the administrator or executor of the estate and the family in understanding the legal and practical requirements of estate administration, and in delegating the numerous tasks to minimize costs. Assistance is also provided to coordinate the efforts of the family’s accountant, investment advisor, insurance counselor, and other professionals to realize the best results.
Specialized Estate Planning for Disabled Beneficiary: Trust
A testamentary trust is a trust that is provided for in a will and takes effect after the death of the person that makes the will. A discretionary trust is a trust created in a will or before death. In either a testamentary or discretionary trust the beneficiary does not have control over the money or assets in the trust. A trustee or trustees are appointed to look after the money and the trustees make all of the spending decisions. The trustees can be family members, friends, professional advisors or corporate trustees.
A trust for a disabled beneficiary in a will allow for the assets to be managed on the beneficiary’s behalf by a trustee of your choosing, it will also reduce the likelihood that the disabled beneficiary will lose access to government services or benefits. Because the beneficiary of a trust has no right to demand any of the income or capital of the trust, the person is not considered to own any of the trust property or to be entitled to any of the trust income.
Only the amounts actually distributed out of such trust to a disabled person will be included in the disabled person’s assets and income in determining whether the disabled person is entitled to government services and benefits. There is no limit to the amount of money that can be held inside a trust.