Nationwide Leaders in Estate Planning Legal Services

First Step Planning is an effective starting point to ensure that your fundamental estate planning needs are met.  This is a fast, efficient, and low-cost method to meet your most basic estate planning needs and clearly identify any special needs you may have.  As part of this process, we’ll identify any additional estate planning issues which need to be addressed by conducting a review of your insurance, investment, disability, and retirement plans. If needed, we will guide you to the appropriate professionals for further assistance.

Last Will & Testament: Hargrove Firm believes that everyone needs a Will regardless of age and net worth.  A will serves the following critical needs in the event of death:

• Indicates how your personal effects and other probate assets are to be distributed at death
• Designates an executor or personal representative to carry out your wishes.
• Designates a guardian for any children who are under the age of majority at your death
• General Durable Power of Attorney
• Appoints an individual to handle your financial affairs if you become disabled/incapacitated

Designation of Health Care Surrogate: Appoints an individual to make your healthcare decisions if you become disabled or otherwise incapacitated.

HIPAA Authorization: Authorizes the release of information by your healthcare providers in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Living Will Declaration: Instructs your physicians with regard to life-prolonging measures and medical treatment if your health is in a state of irreversible decline and death is imminent.

Wealth Transfer and Tax Planning: Hargrove Firm utilizes wealth transfer planning strategies to minimize (or altogether eliminate) estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes using a variety of trusts, limited liability entities, and other strategies including:

• Marital deduction and credit shelter trusts (A/B trusts)
• Qualified Terminal Interest Trusts (QTIPs) and Qualified Domestic Trusts (QDOTs)
• Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs)
• Generation-Skipping Trusts (GST trusts)
• Qualified Personal Residence Trusts (QPRTs)
• Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts (IDGTs)
• Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs)
• Installment sales to IDGTs, private annuities, and Self-Cancelling Installment Notes (SCINs)
• Discount valuation planning and estate freezing with Family Limited Partnerships (FLPs) and Limited Liability Companies (LLCs)
• Retirement counseling on the estate and income tax aspects of required minimum distributions from retirement plans and IRAs

Business Succession Planning: Our planning strategies transition closely-held companies in a tax-efficient manner while maintaining productivity, profits, and harmony among partners (and their families).

Asset Protection Strategies: Asset protection strategies employ techniques such as captive insurance companies, self-settled spendthrift trusts, and various limited liability entities that can be established in Delaware or other jurisdictions, including offshore, under appropriate circumstances. We also help to establish property and financial rights related to matrimonial matters, including preparation of prenuptial agreements, agreements between unmarried couples and trust, estate, and tax advice related to divorce.

Charitable Gift Planning: We utilize charitable gift planning techniques that provide tax savings through the use of charitable remainder trust, private foundations, donor-advised funds, and other tax-exempt gifting vehicles.

We advise executors & trustees, counseling them in all aspects of their fiduciary responsibilities. Clients who are named as Executors or Trustees can depend on us to navigate through the legal process of Estate and Trust Administration. We work hard to ensure that the decedent’s wishes are fulfilled with an efficient transfer of assets to named beneficiaries. Sometimes sensitive family issues give rise to conflicts, and if that happens, we have experience with mediation and litigation, including Will contests and beneficiary disputes.

Our work in Trust & Estate Administration ranges from the basic to the complex, including the following representative matters:

• Preparation of estate tax returns and defense of positions taken on those returns.
• Execution of sophisticated estate planning transactions and other deals on behalf of the Trustee or Executor.
• Providing advice regarding tax issues and corporate matters that are specific to owners of real estate properties and closely-held businesses, as well as executives of public companies.
• Litigating cases in federal, state, and local courts where seemingly interminable conflicts have arisen with beneficiaries, creditors, or the Internal Revenue Service.

Hargrove Firm is strategically partnered with National Elder Care Law, PLLC, a national law firm dedicated to elder law, VA and special needs planning, and other legal issues related to the elderly. Through this partnership, we will help you make the best decisions to build and protect the future of your disabled children, veterans, and other beneficiaries seeking to preserve eligibility for various government benefit programs.

In the next 20 years there is going to be a huge transfer of wealth, the question is are you going to transfer that wealth to your family or to a nursing home? We will work with you and your loved ones to provide professional elder law and estate planning services with the goal to help protect not just your money, but what matters most in your life – quality of life for you, your loved ones and peace of mind.

Legal issues facing seniors:

• Protection and preservation of assets from catastrophic nursing home costs – statistics show that most seniors will use institutional care (i.e. Nursing home care) during their lifetimes
• Medicaid planning to lessen countable assets and qualify sooner for benefits
• Tax considerations for income tax, capital gains, and gift tax
• VA benefits that may be available to veterans and their surviving spouses