For decades, Bayard’s Wills, Trusts, and Estates team has been trusted to draft and implement comprehensive wealth-preserving estate plans for business owners, individuals, retired couples, and families who want to secure their assets for their own future and for the next generation. We help to ensure control of family-owned and other closely-held companies can smoothly transition to the succeeding generation in the most advantageous manner.
At Bayard, we recognize that clients seeking our estate planning and asset preservation services come from different financial circumstances. Our approach to estate planning includes a commitment to explore creative solutions that meet each client’s specific business and family needs, always with an eye toward maximizing asset protection from tax liability and threats from ever-changing laws and government policies. We are sensitive to the competing emotions and financial interests that sometimes exist among the parties involved, and our seasoned practitioners work to achieve our clients’ goals while also reducing the risk of conflict and litigation.
For decades, Bayard’s Wills, Trusts, and Estates team has been trusted to develop, draft, and implement comprehensive wealth-preserving estate plans for business owners, individuals, retired couples, and families who want to secure their assets for their own future and for the next generation. In addition, we help to ensure control of family-owned and other closely-held companies can smoothly transition to the succeeding generation in the most advantageous manners.
At Bayard, we recognize that clients seeking our estate planning services have different financial circumstances. Our approach to estate planning includes a commitment to explore creative solutions that meet each client’s specific family and business needs, always with an eye towards minimizing taxes, creditor protection, and the impact of ever-changing laws and government policies. We are sensitive to the competing emotions and financial interests that sometimes exist among the parties involved, and our seasoned practitioners work to achieve our clients’ goals while also reducing the risk of conflict and litigation.
Important challenges we help our clients address include:
Developing dependable estate plans directing the desired disposition of assets that are resistant to challenge and minimize potential controversy
Creating trusts and other instruments that ensure that the relevant assets pass to the people who are intended to receive them, insulate business and personal assets from creditor exposure liability, minimize taxes, provide income for a clients’ elder years, manage end-of-life care, and distribute property as desired after death
Managing a family’s conflicting claims after a decedent’s asset distribution decisions become known, with the intention of avoiding expensive and wasteful litigation
Negotiating business succession and family estate conflicts
Transitioning from one ownership group to the next in a closely-held company
Integrating estate planning and trust administration services into business ownership transition plans for the owner’s eventual exit from their company’s ongoing operations
Navigating the recent changes in federal estate and gift tax laws, including the potential sunsetting of current elevated exemption levels after 2025
Because clients’ issues often require expertise in multiple practice areas, providing effective estate planning calls for an interdisciplinary team to collaborate on the right strategy for the circumstances. Our unique blend of talent gives us the ability we need to achieve comprehensive business succession plans, complex trust administration, real estate acquisition, and tax minimization services.
