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Estate Planning

Estate planning is best defined as a comprehensive “set of instructions” that allows clients to maintain control during their lifetimes; provide for their care during disability; and to protect their beneficiaries after passing.  Knudsen Burbridge, P.C. offers a full range of trust and estate planning services that enable our clients to pass assets in the most appropriate and tax-effective manner.

Our services include:

  • Working closely with clients to develop Revocable or Living Trust-based Estate Plans

  • Developing and implementing these plans in order avoid the time and expense of the probate system

  • Assisting clients in asset allocation and other techniques in order to minimize both federal estate and Massachusetts estate taxes

  • Understanding the needs of each individual beneficiary and creating sub-trusts that allow a client to specifically craft how each beneficiary will be cared for after passing

  • Providing the means to ensure that the client’s named representatives, and not the Probate Court, will direct how the client is cared for during periods of incapacity

  • Providing for individuals with special needs without jeopardizing government benefits through the use of Third Party and Self-Settled Supplemental Needs Trusts

  • Helping clients preserve wealth and provide for others through the use of charitable planning devices and various other wealth preservation strategies

  • In circumstances where the Probate Court must become involved, working with families to obtain Guardianships and Conservatorships

Below is a list of some of the most common instruments utilized on behalf of our clients:

  • Revocable or Living Trusts

  • Pour-Over Wills

  • Durable Powers of Attorney

  • Health Care Proxies and HIPAA Authorizations

  • Living Wills and Advanced Directives

  • Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts

  • Medicaid Trusts

  • Other Trusts for Advanced Planning such as GRATs, QPRTs, etc.

Please see our Planning Guides under About for more information on these tools and techniques. We also offer a maintenance plan for clients with a revocable living trust.