Wills, Estate Planning, & Trusts

Wills

Your will is a critical legal document which allows you to have a say as to who will manage your estate after your death, how your assets will be distributed, and who will care for your dependants. For similar reasons, proper powers of attorney and personal directives are desirable in the event of your incapacity. Our wills lawyers assist our clients in the preparation of wills, powers of attorney and personal directives taking into account each client’s unique circumstances and intentions.

Estate Planning

Effective estate planning results in the estate distributed in a manner consistent with the intentions of the deceased, where family conflict is avoided and tax exposure is reduced.
Our estate planning practice often addresses business succession and control issues involving our successful entrepreneurial and farming clients and in connection with the estate planning objectives of those clients, we have advised on, and implemented a number of related business reorganizations (such as estate freezes) in furtherance of those estate planning objectives. Our Corporate & Commercial and Tax Law & Tax Planning legal experience avails seamless integration and implementation of our client’s estate planning objectives.

Trusts

Testamentary and inter vivos trusts are often valuable legal relationships that can be used to accomplish the estate planning objectives of our high net worth and successful entrepreneurial business clients. It is important that trusts are structured and documented in a manner which avoids tax pitfalls and avails any accompanying tax benefits to the estate planning objectives. Our firm’s Tax Law & Tax Planning legal professionals are aware of and understands how to structure and form trusts in a manner which takes into account prevailing taxation laws relating to trusts.

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