Losing someone you love is one of life's great challenges. When a parent dies, the grieving surviving spouse and family members are responsible for handling the final administration of the estate. In most cases, handling such affairs includes complex issues like dealing with final taxes, distributing assets to heirs and beneficiaries under a valid will or trust, and arranging final details with creditors and contractual obligations. We aim to guide clients through the probate and trust administration process and remove its pressures in the most difficult moments.

 

Probate administration is a judicial process whereby an individual’s assets are distributed according to either the individual’s last will and testament, or, if there was no will, according to state law.

The probate administration process is time-consuming, public, and usually expensive. The goal of an estate plan is to avoid probate administration by using either a revocable trust or an irrevocable trust and funding the trust before death.

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We help our clients from beginning to end -- from filing the petition to appoint the Personal Representative; securing the property; helping to prepare the estate tax returns; disbursing estate proceeds to heirs; and, producing final accounts to the court.

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A trustee is a person appointed by another person to manage that person’s affairs upon death, disability, or resignation. The process is very important in that the trustee may be responsible for: (1) investing assets to obtain a reasonable rate of return; as well as (2) making distributions to beneficiaries in accordance with the terms of the trust. We can help you if you have been designated as a trustee or if you plan to designate someone as the trustee of your estate.

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In addition, under the right circumstances, we may also serve as trustee of our clients’ trusts either when no family members are available to fill the role or to provide professional trustee services as co-trustee with the client, a family member, or other trusted nonprofessional chosen by the client. We may also serve as successor trustee in the event that the original trustee or trustees can no longer serve for any reason.

When serving as trustee, DesMeules Law Group may also provide the following legal services:

• Payment of bills and other distributions.

• Accounting.

• Work with clients and beneficiaries to develop spending plans that balance payment for current needs and preservation of asset for anticipated future needs.

• Investment supervision

• Supervision of tax return preparation

• Annual meetings

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Call or email us today. No charge for initial consultation.