Our new clients come to us through referral sources, such as financial advisors, accountants, insurance advisors, and existing clients.  Please have your referral source introduce you to us.

We will ask some initial questions to determine whether our services are well-matched to your needs. If so, we will arrange for an initial consultation where we will learn about your family circumstances and specific goals and share information about our process and fee structure.  If we decide to move forward, we will send you an engagement letter and our new client questionnaire.  Your help in completing the questionnaire as completely as possible allows us be more efficient throughout our engagement with you.

We begin our engagement by listening to our clients’ goals and concerns, ensuring that we understand the family and financial circumstances before we delve into tax planning.  So much of estate planning is selecting the right people to serve in fiduciary roles for clients and their children, so we spend time discussing family relationships and values.

Next, we review your existing estate planning documents and identify potential vulnerabilities and opportunities for enhancement.  We educate our clients on the transfer tax system and various state and federal laws that affect their plan.  Then, we share recommendations for improving and streamlining the existing plan.

To explain the plan and the solutions, we will often prepare flowcharts and spreadsheets to illustrate our proposals for all types of learners.  We strive to ensure our clients understand our recommendations and make educated decisions about what will be best for them and their family.

Preparing wills and trusts is only one part of our holistic process.  We advise on titling of assets, assist with real estate transfers, prepare beneficiary designation forms for retirement plans and life insurance policies, and see through to completion any changes that are needed to successfully implement our recommendations.

Once the basics are securely in place, we move on to tax planning.  Some of the more advanced estate planning documents we prepare (and their ridiculous acronyms) include:

• Irrevocable life insurance trusts (“ILITs”)
• Spousal lifetime access trusts (“SLATs”)
• Gift trusts for spouse, children and/or grandchildren
• Intentionally defective grantor trusts (“IDGTs”)
• Dynasty trusts for the generation-skipping transfer tax exemption (“GST Trusts”)
• Grantor retained annuity trusts (“GRATs”)
• Qualified personal residence trusts (“QPRTs”)
• Charitable lead annuity trusts and charitable remainder unitrusts (“CLATs” and “CRUTs”)
• Domestic asset protection trusts (“DAPTs”)
• Power of appointment support trusts (“POASTs”)
• Family partnership and limited liability company agreements
• Shareholder agreements that implement business succession plans
• Trust funding through purchase agreements and promissory notes

We pride ourselves on documents that are easy to understand, that put the important information up front and the boilerplate in the back.  We also give multiple summaries of the estate plan, including a detailed summary letter, executive summaries, flowcharts, and spreadsheets.

Our work does not end at the signing meeting.  We file beneficiary designation forms with financial institutions and insurance providers, submit real estate deeds for recording, work with financial advisors to transfer assets to implement the planning recommendations, and prepare and file gift tax returns where necessary.

We have follow-up meetings with clients over the years to ensure the plan is being properly administered and to determine whether changes are necessary, and we recommend “all hands on deck” meetings on an annual basis. These meetings with the client’s financial advisor, accountant, estate planning attorney, philanthropic advisor and/or insurance advisor are key to identifying continuing opportunities for tax savings and ensuring tax and legal reporting requirements are met.

Our final product is more than paperwork; it’s the assurance that your family’s wealth is protected through all of life’s stages. With Birchstone Moore, you gain not only a plan but also peace of mind.