Areas of Practice

Estate Planning and Administration

Estate Tax Planning

Nobody wants to pay more taxes to the IRS than the law requires. Still, developing an estate plan without tax planning is like buying a safe before you know what you need to protect.

Holland, Ray, Upchurch & Hillen, P.A. has developed a comprehensive approach to estate planning that help clients determine their legacy and by identifying their personal and professional objectives. Holland, Ray, Upchurch & Hillen, P.A. can develop estate planning and asset protection strategies to support the client’s objectives and minimize estate taxes.

Wills

A Will is an effective entry level estate planning tool that ensures distribution of your property after your death. However, wills must go through Probate, which is a public process that can last for many months and eat up a significant fraction of the estate in legal expenses.

Revocable Living Trusts

A Revocable Living Trust is a Will substitute that provides asset protection. Instead of using a Will to distribute your property to loved ones, you transfer your property to the Revocable Living Trust. You and/or your spouse are the trustee of the Revocable Living Trust. The trustee has full power to manage and protect assets held in trust in the same way as if the assets were still in your name. While you are alive and able, you serve as the trustee.

If incapacity strikes, your successor trustee steps into your shoes and continues the management and protection of trust assets according to your guidelines. Your successor trustee’s powers are limited to assets owned by the trust. After death, your successor trustee will distribute the property according to the terms of the trust which operates much the same way that a Will operates. However, while a Will has to go through the public probate process, the property in your trust is distributed privately without court involvement which is more costly and time consuming.

Wealth Transfer Planning

How wealth is transferred from one generation to the next is a very important estate planning concept which is case specific for each client. Tools considered for use in wealth transfer planning include Revocable Living Trusts, Wills, Trusts, Beneficiary Protection Planning and Business Continuity Planning.

Family Conflict Avoidance

Certain Estate Planning strategies can reduce the potential for family conflict by disclosure of the Estate Plan to family members or by including incentives in the Estate Plan for avoiding conflict.

Beneficiary Protection Planning

Certain Estate Planning tools can reduce the risk that one of your beneficiaries may lose their inheritance from you due to creditors, lawsuits, a divorcing spouse, or mismanagement of money.

Charitable Giving

Charitable Giving as part of an Estate Plan gives you the opportunity to leave a legacy and minimize taxes.

Probate Avoidance

Probating a will can be time-consuming, expensive and tiresome. Probate is the process of administering an estate in which a will is presented to the court, creditor claims are satisfied and assets are distributed to heirs. Effective Estate Planning can help you avoid probate with the use of Revocable Living Trusts.

Estate Administration

This is part of the probate process in which a will is presented to the court, creditor claims are satisfied and assets are distributed to heirs. Estate Administration can also include the distribution of assets from a Trust to the beneficiaries of that Trust.