Estate Planning has always been one of our core practice areas. Our attorneys have helped structure thousands of estate and succession plans for individual clients and those whose estates include family owned businesses. Choosing the best structure for you, creating the documents and administering the plans can be an overwhelming process. Our experienced attorneys can help you sort through this very complex area of the law.

Colombo & Colombo provides complete estate planning, estate and trust administration and probate services for our clients. Our goal is to provide personal service and a specific estate plan tailored to fit your needs. Our attorneys are sensitive to the issues that need to be discussed in order to walk you through the process of developing the documents that will ease the estate planning and administration process for you and your loved ones. Contacting an attorney to discuss incapacity and death is often difficult, but our attorneys make the process easier, lend a listening ear to your concerns, and provide you with clear instructions and documents to fit your personal situation.

Generally, a comprehensive estate plan provided by our attorneys will consist of a Last Will and Testament, Living Trust, Power of Attorney for Financial Management and Power of Attorney/Patient Advocate for Medical and Mental Health Treatment. Your estate plan may include different or additional documents, depending on your particular circumstances, needs and objectives.

Not only is it important to plan for death and the transfer of your assets, but many times it is even more important to plan for your incapacity. Our attorneys are experienced in the area of incapacity planning and administration and regularly prepare powers of attorney for financial affairs and patient advocate and health care powers of attorney for medical decisions, which permit you to appoint a carefully selected individual to act as your agent, or power of attorney, in the event of your temporary or long-term incapacity. Our attorneys are also experienced in probate proceedings seeking guardianship and conservatorship appointments over incapacitated individuals. But these costly and public proceedings can often be avoided with the proper planning and guidance from our attorneys.

Our firm also provides estate and trust administration services, services relating to guardianship and conservatorship proceedings, tax planning and other estate planning and administration services, including:

• Estate analysis and planning
• Lifetime gifting programs
• Charitable gifting
• Federal estate tax planning
• Federal estate and estate and trust income tax return preparation
• Estate and Trust administration
• Contested estate and trust proceedings
• Ladybird Deeds
• Guardianships
• Conservatorships
• Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts
• Dynasty Trusts
• Special Needs Trusts

You can contact any of our attorneys by calling 248-645-9300 to learn more about our approach to helping clients with their wills, trusts, and probate issues.