Building wealth and keeping it are two different challenges. Lawsuits, creditors, divorce, taxes and simple disorganization can erode what took a lifetime to build. Our personal wealth planning practice uses legal tools to hold your assets in the right structures, protect them from foreseeable risks and pass them on efficiently.
What we help with
- Real estate holding structures. Investment properties are often best held in separate LLCs so that a claim against one building does not reach the others. We form and document these entities and coordinate them with your estate plan.
- Family business succession. We plan who will own and run the business after you, and put buy-sell agreements in place so that your family is protected and the business survives the transition.
- Lifetime gifting and estate tax planning. New York has its own estate tax, with a threshold much lower than the federal exemption and a steep “cliff” for estates just above it. We structure gifts and trusts to reduce the tax your family will pay.
- Asset protection. Within the limits of the law, we use entities, trusts and proper titling to shield family wealth from future business and personal liabilities.
- Cross-border families. Many of our clients hold property, bank accounts or business interests in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or elsewhere. We help coordinate U.S. planning with overseas assets and work alongside your foreign counsel and accountants.
Our approach
Wealth planning works best as a team effort. We work closely with your accountant, financial adviser and insurance professional so that the legal structure, tax treatment and investments all point in the same direction. Our role is the legal architecture: entities, trusts, agreements and ownership. We do not sell investment products, so our advice is independent.
We review your plan periodically and whenever your circumstances or the law change, so your structure keeps working as your wealth grows.