Most people put off estate planning because it seems like a project for the wealthy or the elderly. In New York it is neither. Without a will, the state decides who inherits under a fixed formula. Without a power of attorney and a health care proxy, a stroke or an accident can send your family to court for a guardianship. And New York taxes estates starting at $7.35 million, less than half the federal threshold, so a family with a valuable home, a business or a large portfolio can owe state estate tax while owing nothing to the IRS.
The plan itself is usually simpler than people expect. For many families it is a will, a power of attorney, a health care proxy, a living will, and a careful look at how accounts and real estate are titled. For others it adds a trust to avoid probate, protect a child, qualify for Medicaid, or reduce estate tax. We start by understanding your situation and then use the fewest documents that do the job. Call us at 212-233-1233 or email [email protected].
What Documents Do You Need?
Answer a few questions and this page will show you which documents and which of our pages apply to your situation. Nothing you enter on this page leaves your browser.
What an Estate Plan Includes
Every New York estate plan is built from the same handful of documents. Which ones you need, and how they are drafted, depends on your family and your assets.
Last Will and Testament
Names who inherits, who serves as executor, and who raises your minor children. A will goes through probate in Surrogate’s Court, so it is drafted and signed to survive a challenge. Read about the types of wills and what a will costs.
Revocable Living Trust
Holds your assets during life and passes them at death without probate, in private, with a successor trustee ready to act if you become incapacitated. Not everyone needs one; see do I need a trust and trust vs. will.
Power of Attorney
Lets the person you choose manage your finances if you cannot. New York’s statutory form changed in 2021; the gifting and Medicaid planning powers must be added deliberately or your agent will not have them.
Health Care Proxy and Living Will
The proxy names who makes medical decisions for you. The living will tells them what you want. Together they keep your family out of a guardianship proceeding. See also advance directives.
Irrevocable Trusts
Trusts you cannot change, used for a specific purpose: protecting assets from nursing home costs, removing life insurance from your taxable estate, providing for a disabled child, or holding an inheritance for a child who is not ready for it.
Beneficiary Designations and Titling
Retirement accounts, life insurance, joint accounts and transfer-on-death deeds pass outside your will. A plan that ignores them fails. We review every designation so the documents and the accounts say the same thing.
Planning for Your Situation
The documents are the same for everyone. What goes into them is not. These are the situations we plan for most often.
Parents of young children
A will that names a guardian for your children and a trust that holds their inheritance until an age you choose, so an eighteen-year-old does not receive a lump sum and a court does not choose who raises them. See naming a guardian.
Homeowners
Your home is probably your largest asset and the one most likely to get stuck in probate, be exposed to a nursing home, or push you over the estate tax line. We decide, with you, whether it belongs in a revocable trust, an irrevocable trust, or your own name with a well-drafted will.
Second marriages and blended families
A plan that provides for your spouse for life and then passes what is left to your own children, instead of to your spouse’s children or a future spouse. That takes a trust, and a clear understanding of the spouse’s elective share. See protecting children’s inheritance in a second marriage and QTIP trusts.
Families with a disabled member
An outright inheritance can cost a disabled child their Medicaid and SSI. A special needs trust holds the money for their benefit without disqualifying them. See planning for a disabled child.
Seniors and nursing home costs
Nursing home care in the New York City area costs around $15,000 a month. A Medicaid asset protection trust, set up at least five years before care is needed, keeps the home and savings in the family. See our Medicaid planning section.
Estates over $7.35 million
New York’s estate tax starts at $7,350,000 in 2026 and, thanks to the cliff, takes the whole estate once you are 5% over the line. Credit shelter trusts, life insurance trusts, lifetime gifts and more sophisticated tools apply. See our estate tax planning section.
Business owners and landlords
Who runs the business or the buildings the day after you die, how your family is paid for them, and how to pass them on without a forced sale. Operating agreements, buy-sell provisions and family LLCs are part of the estate plan. See family LLCs.
Property in more than one state
Real estate outside New York means a second probate in that state unless it is held in a trust or an entity. We plan for the Florida condo and the upstate cabin as part of the same plan.
How We Prepare Your Estate Plan
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Initial consultation
We spend the first meeting listening. Who is in your family, what you own and how it is titled, what you want to happen and what you are worried about. Bring a rough list of assets and any documents you already have. Our estate planning checklist tells you what to gather.
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A recommendation, with the reasons
We tell you which documents you need, which you do not, and why. If a trust is not worth the cost for your situation, we say so. You get a fixed quote before any drafting starts. See what estate planning costs.
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Drafting
We draft the documents for your family, not from a template with the names changed. You review them, we walk through every provision in plain English, and we revise until they say exactly what you mean.
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Signing
We supervise the signing with the witnesses and notary the law requires. A will signed under an attorney’s supervision is presumed valid in New York, which matters if anyone ever challenges it. We have litigated will contests for years, and we draft to win them before they start.
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Funding and titling
A trust owns nothing until assets are transferred to it. We prepare the deeds, retitle the accounts, and fix the beneficiary designations so the plan works on paper and in practice.
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Keeping it current
Marriages, births, deaths, moves and new laws all change what a plan should say. We tell you how to store the originals and we are here when something changes.
Why Families Choose Us
We also litigate estates
We spend much of our time in Surrogate’s Court contesting and defending wills and trusts. We have seen exactly which drafting choices cause fights and which prevent them, and we draft accordingly.
Plain English, fixed fees
You will understand every document you sign, and you will know the cost before we begin. Most estate plans are done for a flat fee quoted at the first meeting.
New York specifics
The estate tax cliff, the spousal elective share, the 2021 power of attorney form, Medicaid’s five-year look-back, co-op board rules on trusts. New York has its own traps, and we plan around them every day.
Since 2008
Hundreds of estate plans for families in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, and many of those families have come back to update them.
Questions People Ask Us
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
A will is enough when your assets are modest, your beneficiaries are adults who can handle money, and you are not trying to avoid probate, protect assets from a nursing home, or reduce estate tax. A trust earns its cost when one of those is true, when you own real estate in more than one state, or when you want assets held for someone over time. We go through this on do I need a trust.
What happens if I die without a will in New York?
Your estate passes under the intestacy statute: a spouse takes the first $50,000 and half the rest, your children share the balance, and if there is no spouse or children it goes to parents, then siblings, and outward. The court appoints an administrator, minor children’s shares are held by the court until 18, and no one you would have chosen has any say. See intestate succession.
What does an estate plan cost?
A will-based plan with a power of attorney and health care proxy is a flat fee in the low thousands. A trust-based plan costs more because of the drafting and the funding work. We quote the fee at the first meeting, and it does not change. Our estate planning costs page has current ranges.
Can I disinherit my spouse or a child?
A child, yes; New York lets you leave a child nothing, though the will should say so clearly. A spouse, no; a surviving spouse can elect to take one-third of your estate regardless of the will, unless they waived that right in a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. See the spousal right of election.
How often should I update my plan?
Whenever your family or your assets change in a way that matters: marriage, divorce, a birth, a death, a move out of state, a major purchase or sale, or a change in the tax law. Absent those, every five years or so is a sensible check. Divorce revokes gifts to a former spouse automatically in New York, but almost nothing else updates itself.
My assets are mostly retirement accounts and life insurance. Does a will cover them?
No. Those pass by beneficiary designation, outside the will, to whoever the form names, even if the will says otherwise. Reviewing and correcting the designations is part of every plan we do.
Read More
How Estate Planning Works
An overview of the process and the documents, for people starting from scratch.
Planning for Your Own Disability
The documents that keep your family out of an Article 81 guardianship proceeding.
Estate Tax Planning
New York’s $7.35 million exclusion and the cliff, A/B trusts, SLATs, GRATs, ILITs and more.
Advanced Techniques
Family companies, charitable trusts, and the tools for larger estates.
Digital Assets
Passwords, accounts, crypto and photos: how to make sure your family can reach them.
Pet Trusts
Providing for an animal after your death under New York’s pet trust statute.
Start Your Estate Plan
Call us at 212-233-1233 or email [email protected]. Tell us a little about your family and what you own, and we will tell you what a plan would involve and what it would cost. Our office is at 31 West 34th Street in Manhattan, and we meet clients by video as well.
