Nervous about Do-It-Yourself, Fill-in-Form Estate Plans?

That’s smart.  Although that may be fine for your situation, saving a little money upfront can cost your family big down the line if your plan doesn’t work the way you intend.  Much of what passes for estate planning is little more than word processing.  You are asked a few questions and the “drafter” decides which plan is right for you, hits “search and replace” with your family’s name and prints out form documents.

We Are Professional Estate Planners

Your lawyer will educate you, take the time to get to know you, your family, your concerns, your goals and your issues and will gladly and patiently answer all your questions to produce an estate plan that is exactly right for you and will will work for your loved ones when it’s needed.

Planning for Everyone You Love and Everything You Have

Do you know exactly what would happen for everyone you love and everything you own if something unexpected happened to you? If you don’t, the first step is to get informed about exactly what would happen, legally and financially, so you can decide if that’s okay.

How We Help You With Estate Planning

We conduct an initial consultation, where we spend time together, and you learn about exactly what would happen, legally and financially, if something unexpected happened to you.  Before your initial consultation, you will complete a helpful questionnaire, which will help you to get clear about what you own and what you have to think about when it comes to planning for the well-being and care of your loved ones. If what would happen matches your goals, you’re all set, and you leave with peace of mind. If you decide the current state of affairs is unacceptable, and if we both decide it’s a fit to work together, then we can design an estate plan together that will best suit the needs of your family.

Estate Administration After the Death of a Loved One

When a loved one dies it can be a confusing time in which you are in immense grief while also needing to make sure you handle all the technical details of locating assets, paying bills, and making sure your loved one’s assets get to the right people, without conflict. We are here to help.

Trust Administration

Even if your loved one had a trust, it’s important to speak with a lawyer to make sure assets were properly titled to the trust in order to avoid the court’s probate process. If they were, a lawyer can give you a roadmap of what your next steps are and that may be all the help you need. If you need more guidance through the trust administration process, your lawyer can continue to help.

Probate

If your loved one did not have a trust or if assets were not properly titled to their trust, even if they had a will, their assets will probably have to be probated. Probate in South Carolina is a court-supervised procedure that helps to ensure the legal transfer of assets from the deceased to the rightful heirs or beneficiaries. The probate process involves many responsibilities such as keeping track of deadlines, inventorying assets, filing the proper forms, paying the proper fees, and communicating with beneficiaries, financial institutions and creditors, just to name a few.

Choose an Experienced Attorney

Although an attorney is not required in South Carolina to administer an estate, most people find they prefer to work with one when they realize all that’s involved. Working with an experienced probate attorney will help you become educated and help you complete the process as quickly and efficiently as possible.

You Are Not Alone

Our primary objective is to make this process as easy as possible for you, and minimize the impact of working with the court, while also keeping your family out of conflict. We’ll work closely with you to ensure the terms of the will or trust, or the probate laws, are carried out properly. At the same time, we’ll make the process as understandable and stress-free as we can.