ESTATE PLANNING
Silfen Law Group represents individual entrepreneurs including real estate developers, hedge fund owners and owners of other businesses, professionals, persons with inherited wealth and retired persons for estate planning. We often represent multiple generations of a family. We are experienced at drafting Wills and all types of trust agreements. We also sometimes arrange for the restructuring of family businesses to achieve estate planning goals. Our overriding goal is to craft an estate plan that makes sense for the family from both a tax savings perspective and a personal perspective.
Estate and Trust Administration
Members of Silfen Law Group have over thirty years of experience in efficiently administering estates and trusts. Nina started administering complex estates and trusts at a major New York City bank in the 1980s and brings substantial expertise in this field to the firm. We have administered estates with less common assets such as commercial real estate and other business holdings, and with art collections. We also have administered U.S. estates of persons who are neither U.S. citizens nor U.S. residents. We carefully guide the Executor through all of the steps of the estate administration, from probate to dealing with the federal and state tax authorities to the final accounting. We monitor and administer trusts and provide our expert guidance to trustees.
Planning For Families With Children
With Special Needs
As the mother of a special needs child, Nina is keenly aware of the unique challenges facing the parents of special needs children. Silfen Law Group prepares trusts known as “supplemental needs trusts,” which are designed to address the needs of persons with special needs throughout their lives without disrupting the individual’s entitlement to government benefits. Silfen Law Group also institutes guardianship proceedings in Surrogate’s Court, for the appointment of a guardian of the person and property of a person with special needs who has attained adulthood.