Estate Planning

At HUCK & BRISSKE, LLC the emphasis is on the client. We pride ourselves in being client-centered and relationship-based in our interaction with our clients during the estate planning process. We also understand that estate planning is not an event, but a process that involves a dialog involving the client and his or her estate planning professional, as well as the client's other advisors. From time to time a client's finances will change, his or her objectives will change, the needs and dynamics of the client's family will change, and tax laws are forever changing. An estate plan needs to keep up with these changes. It is critical that the client stay involved in this process.

In accepting an estate planning engagement, we are invariably being asked to prepare a plan for an event (disability or death) that will take place at an undetermined time in the future. Because we don't know when that will be for any given client, we also don't know:

It is not our goal to simply create a plan that addresses only the client's current issues and does not adjust to the client's changing circumstances over time. Neither should that be the client's goal. Our hope is that every estate planning engagement will develop into an ongoing relationship with the client and the client's family so that we can make sure that the plan works as the client intends it to work when it is needed. Our practice is designed to meet that objective through a FAMILY LEGACY PLANNING model that will provide ongoing protection for the client's family over time.

The attorneys at HUCK & BRISSKE, LLC belileve that there are a number of steps to a successful estate plan:

• Introduction: It is impossible to plan for the transfer of a client's "estate" unless we understand our clients, their families, their vision and goals, their values and their hopes for their loved ones. The first step in the estate planning process, therefore, involves learning about our clients and what they expect from the process and how we can best help them achieve that. We also want to make sure that our clients understand the process and the issues involved. Often, those issues are complex, involving detailed estate, gift and income tax principles. We make every attempt to explain the issues in a simple and straightforward manner, involving the client in the process. We encourage the client to ask questions, and make the process as interactive as possible.
• Design: Once the legal and tax landscape has been explained and navigated to the client's satisfaction, we design the clients' plan. The plan design is determined by the client, with our guidance and through our close questioning regarding issues relevant to their personal, family and financial situation, using a Planning Diagnostic completed by the client.
• Documents: Once the plan has been designed, the process of drafting documents begins. We will prepare documents that incorporate the client's design into a comprehensive plan. Those documents may include a Living Trust with a Companion Will, a Durable Power of Attorney for Property, a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, a Living Will, a HIPAA Authorization and, in some cases, an Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains. Additional planning may involve Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts, Gift Trusts, Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, Limited Partnerships, Charitable Trusts, or other documents.
• Review and Exeuction: At the Execution and Implementation Meeting, we will review the documents that make up the estate plan with the client, and explain the various provisions of each document. Once the documents are executed (signed), we will then incorporate those documents into a personalized Estate Planning Portfolio.
• Implementation and Funding: The most important, and yet most overlooked, aspects of an estate plan are the processes of asset allocation, funding and beneficiary designation. Transferring and re-titling assets, and designating appropriate beneficiaries, are as important to the effectiveness of an estate plan as the documents drafted by the attorney. Failure to make the necessary asset allocations, transfers, and beneficiary designations, often results in an estate plan that, although well-drafted, is totally ineffective to accomplish the client's objectives. We work with each client to make sure that this phase of the estate planning process is completed. These integrated parts of the plan are critical to an estate plan that works.
• Family Legacy Meeting: It is important for the adult family members of each client to understand the client's estate plan, since they are inevitably the beneficiaries of that plan. It is also imperative that the fiduciaries (Trustees, Executors, Guardians, Agents under Powers of Attorney, etc.) understand their role in the process so that they will know what is expected of them if they are called upon to act in the capacity to which they have been named. We will make ourselves available to conduct a meeting among the adult members of each client's family, as well as the named fiduciaries, to explain the plan that has been created. At the client's option, we invite the client's trusted advisors to participate in the meeting to keep them involved and advised of the client's situation.
• One-Year Access and Review: In order to insure that an estate plan and all its components are complete, and that all aspects of the plan have been implemented, each client is enrolled in a one-year access and review program as a part of the estate planning engagement. During that year, the client will have reasonable access to the attorneys and staff at HUCK & BRISSKE, LLC from the date of execution of the estate planning documents until the anniversary date of the execution of those documents. This one-year access and review program also includes a complimentary one-year enrollment in our Advance Directives program, which gives EMTs, health care providers and others direct access to the client's advance medical directives (Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, Living Will and HIPAA Authorization) simply by making a telephone call. At the end of that year, we will schedule a meeting with the client to review the estate plan and to confirm that all assets have been re-titled as necessary, and all beneficiary changes have been accomplished. That meeting will mark the completion of the initial phase of the estate planning project. From that point forward, each client has the option to enroll in our FAMILY LEGACY PLAN™ at the annual fee then in effect for that plan. The FAMILY LEGACY PLAN™ is more fully explained below.

• Reasonable access to the attorneys and staff at HUCK & BRISSKE, LLC, for questions regarding estate planning throughout the plan year.
• Online, password-protected and fully secure client "vault" (online document storage facility) on our website for estate planning and other documents, including:
  • Online access to all estate planning documents and Affidavits of Trust;
  • Online access by such advisors and family members on a document-by-document basis, as the client determines to be appropriate.
• Complimentary enrollment in the firm's Advance Directives program, which includes:
  • Remote electronic storage of Advance Medical Directives, i.e., Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care, Living Wills and HIPAA Authorizations (and Appointments of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains, if appropriate);
  • Medical Emergency Card, which contains (at the client's option) emergency contact information and information about medical conditions and allergies;
  • Access, on a 24/7 basis, to the Advance Medical Directives listed above through an 800 number printed on the Medical Emergency Card;
  • Optional delivery of Advance Medical Directives to the client's primary care physician;
• No additional charge for various services throughout the plan year for such matters as:
  • Beneficiary designations for new retirement accounts, annuities and life insurance policies;
  • Trust certifications;
  • Preparation of deeds transferring real estate out of trust and back into trust in the event of the re-finance of an existing mortgage or taking out an equity line of credit (exclusive of recording and other third-party costs);
  • Legal letters of opinion in the event of a re-finance or new equity line of credit.
• Exclusive invitation to annual firm event/program.

• Conduct a complete review of the estate planning file and all estate planning documents; outline current fiduciaries, including Executors, Trustees, agents under Powers of Attorney, HIPAA agents, etc.
• Prepare and draft a Confirmation of Names and Fiduciaries.
• Correspond with the clilent and attach or enclose the Confirmation of Names and Fiduciaries and the Confidential Estate Planning Spreadsheet.
• Review Confirmation of Names and Fiduciaries and Confidential Estate Planning Spreadsheet, after it has been completed and returned by the client, in preparation for annual meeting;
• Draft updated and restated Estate Planning Documents, as necessary or required by legislative and/or tax changes, or to reflect a change in fiduciaries (a complete restatement of every estate planning document will be accomplished at least every five years, assuming enrollment in the FAMILY LEGACY PLAN™ for a continuous 5-year period), including any or all of the following:
  • Durable Powers of Attorney for Property;
  • Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care;
  • Living Wills;
  • HIPAA Authorizations; and
  • Appointments of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains, if necessary.
• Update the Estate Planning Portfolio and scan all signed documents for the firm's files.
• Office conference or online meeting with the client to:
  • Review estate planning objectives;
  • Review the dispositive distribution and other estate planning provisions to ensure alignment with the client's objectives;
  • Review current tax laws, including the impact of such tax laws on the estate situation and planning documentation;
  • Review recent legislation and other legal issues to determine whether changes in the law require updated provisions in the estate plan;
  • Review the ownership of all assets to ensure that the titles of assets are consistent with the terms of the estate plan, and make any necessary changes, including reallocation of assets between trusts for married couples; and
  • Review all life insurance, annuity and retirement plan beneficiary designations, as applicable, to confirm that beneficiary designations are coordinated with the overall estate plan, and that such beneficiary designations are income tax efficient and appropriate to accomplish the client's estate planning objectives; re-designate any beneficiary designations that are inappropriate to the client's estate plan (subject to the exclusions, below*).

• Restated or Amended Living Trusts; and
• Newly drafted Pour-Over Wills or Codicils.

• Time beyond "reasonable" access to attorneys and staff, referred to above.
• Any other services not specifically enumerated in the plan benefits, above.

 We cannot take responsibility for the continued effectiveness of an estate plan that has not been regularly reviewed by our office.

Click here to download an Estate Planning Questionnaire: single / married