Our Practice

---

ESTATE PLANNING SERVICES

Experience You Can Trust 

Getting married, purchasing property, starting a family, launching a business, retiring – these are all important and exciting milestones in your life. You have worked extremely hard to build your assets and establish your legacy. How can you ensure that the hard work you are doing today will be protected and honored tomorrow? An estate plan, including a business succession plan if you own a business, is the only way to ensure that your wishes will be carried out, and your legacy will be preserved. Here are some of the reasons we recommend estate planning:

Identifying and Carrying Out Your Wishes

The importance of planning ahead cannot be overstated. If an accident, illness, or injury leaves you unable to articulate your preferences or desires and you are unable to speak up for yourself or exert control over your personal financial and healthcare decisions the estate plan created by Sage Counsel, LLP will assist you in making known your wishes concerning things like life support and end-of-life care, ensuring your values are upheld even when you cannot actually voice them. This is an integral aspect of estate planning.

Avoiding the Unnecessary Burden of Probate

A common component of estate planning is determining which assets are passed on to your heirs. While this can be accomplished through a will, a will alone may be insufficient to meet your complete estate planning needs. The reason is that even with a will it is possible that the distribution of the assets will nonetheless have to go through a court probate process—this process is expensive and can cause a lot of stress and anxiety in your loved ones. It can also cause delay in the distribution of your assets and potentially not disregard your personal wishes. The best way to avoid probate is through a trust. The attorneys at Sage Counsel, LLP will help you consider and prepare for these advanced estate planning considerations and ensure your estate avoids probate.

Preserving Assets

You have worked hard to attain your assets, and you should do everything you can to preserve the full value of your estate. When you pass your assets on to a child or grandchild, for example, you want your heirs to receive the full benefit of those assets. But if you do not carefully plan for the future, that may not be how things turn out. In some instances, estate taxes can take out a big portion of your assets’ overall value, leaving your heirs with less than what you or they had hoped for. The attorneys at Sage Counsel, LLP can help you ensure that the people you love receive the maximum value of their inherited assets. 

Other Life Considerations

Your estate planning needs may include more than just identifying and carrying out your healthcare and financial wishes, avoiding probate, or preserving your assets. No two people ever have the same estate planning needs. You may have questions about selecting guardians for your children; appointing a trustee; creating trusts for your minor children or grandchildren; or something else altogether. The attorneys at Sage Counsel, LLP can discuss your situation in-depth and help you arrive at a plan that helps you meet all your estate planning objectives and goals.

BUSINESS PLANNING AND TRANSACTION SERVICES

Knowledge You Can Leverage  

You have a great idea and some money to invest in a business – but how do you get that business started? Structuring your company is one of the first and most impactful decisions you will make when starting a business because this decision will affect taxation, management and liability issues going forward. The attorneys at Sage Counsel, LLP can help you decide on the best business structure for your company, as well as create, prepare, and review leases and other business contracts.

Our attorneys have over 60 years of combined legal experience.  We use that experience to prepare a customized estate plan to help you preserve your assets and protect your loved ones. Please contact us to schedule your free phone consultation today.