Estate Planning and Administration

Wilson & Ratledge, PLLC's Estate Planning and Administration/Trusts and Estates Attorneys are committed to providing to our clients highly personalized services and understanding that an estate plan is much more than a will or trust and encourage our clients to express their concerns and objectives to us. Each estate plan is customized according to the particular client's circumstances. Our primary goal is to help our clients achieve their financial objectives by creating customized estate plans with practical and workable solutions, and minimizing tax burdens where possible. With estate administration, we can provide assistance with probate matters, estate tax filings and estate settlement. Clients can retain us to answer a single estate question or to take the matter from start to finish.

We often help clients seeking assistance with wills, living trusts, marital deduction or generation-skipping transfer tax exemption, power of attorney, special needs planning, as well as charitable planning, planning with life insurance or planning for the transfer of a business to a younger generation. We encourage the client's financial advisors, such as stock brokers, insurance agents, trust officers, accountants and financial planners, to participate in the planning process. Our professionals have over thirty years experience in the Life and Health Insurance industries and include a Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant degrees. Our professionals also include a former trust attorney with one of the largest banks.

Other practitioners, and corporate and individual fiduciaries seeking technical advice often retain our services; fiduciaries of out of state estates also frequently retain the Firm to serve as local counsel in North Carolina probate and tax matters.

Our clients range from those with modest means to those with significant wealth, whether in the form of real estate, marketable securities, closely held business interests, qualified plans, IRAs, or other assets.

We have on staff a certified public accountant. We have attorneys who hold masters degrees in tax, all of whom have extensive tax experience and routinely handle matters involving income taxation, estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxation; and tax matters before the IRS and in other appropriate judicial forms.