Estate Administration & Probate

Our Firm provides comprehensive estate administration, probate, and trust administration legal services to individual and corporate fiduciaries facing the task of administering a decedent’s estate or trust.

We regularly represent executors, administrators, personal representatives and trustees to assist them with:

  • Preparing probate applications, inventories and accountings with the Clerk of Court.
  • Mitigating exposure to federal estate tax, fiduciary income taxes, generation-skipping transfer taxes, and other potential tax liabilities.
  • Securing appraisals for investments, real estate, closely-held business interests, and other property of value.
  • Post-mortem disclaimer planning.
  • The management of creditors’ claims and the recovery of property owned by the decedent or the estate.
  • Coordinating the preparation of federal and North Carolina estate, fiduciary income, and other tax-related returns.
  • Timing of the payment of debts and estate and trust administrative expenses in order to minimize the exposure of an estate, trust or the decedent’s beneficiaries to the imposition of tax liability.
  • Communicating with the Courts, the IRS and NC Department of Revenue to ensure the estate or trust remains in compliance with required filing deadlines.
  • The most efficient methods of transferring asset ownership.
  • Preparing and filing of all documents to formally initiate, process and conclude the administration of a decedent’s estate.
  • Judicial and non-judicial modifications and reformations of irrevocable trusts and decanting to new trusts.