Our Services
Estate & Legacy Planning
Estate planning is deciding now what happens to everything you built, so your family never has to guess. We match you with advisors who coordinate the financial side of that plan with your attorney.
The documents every family needs
A will. Usually a revocable trust, which in New York spares your family a probate process that is slower and more expensive than in most states. Powers of attorney and health care proxies, so someone you trust can act if you cannot. Beneficiary designations that actually match the plan, which is where most estates quietly go wrong.
Attorneys draft these documents. Advisors make sure the financial pieces align with them: account titling, beneficiaries, liquidity for taxes, and the investment strategy inside trusts. When the two do not talk, plans fail.
The New York estate tax cliff
New York has its own estate tax, separate from the federal one, with an exemption in the range of seven million dollars. What makes it notorious is the cliff: exceed the exemption by more than five percent and the entire exemption disappears, taxing the estate from the first dollar.
For Westchester families, this threshold is easier to cross than it sounds. A home in Scarsdale or Bronxville, retirement accounts, and life insurance can push an estate over the line. Advisors who plan around the cliff, through gifting strategies, trusts, and insurance structuring, routinely save families six and seven figures. This is one of the most valuable conversations we arrange.
Inheriting well
If you have inherited an IRA, the rules changed significantly in recent years: most non-spouse heirs must now empty the account within ten years, often during their own peak earning years, with real tax consequences. If you expect to leave wealth, the structure of what you leave, Roth versus traditional, trusts versus outright, shapes your children's tax bills for a decade.
Good estate planning runs in both directions: receiving gracefully and giving efficiently.
How we match for estate work
We match you with advisors who do this coordination routinely and who work well with Westchester estate attorneys. Fiduciary duty, credentials, and clean records are verified as always; see our standard. Begin with a private inquiry.
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