Estate planning for families
A plan that holds up when it is needed most.
Wills, revocable trusts, directives, and guardianship, built around your actual family rather than a template. And the funding step that is too often left undone: we guide you through retitling your assets and updating your beneficiary designations, and track each step until it is confirmed.
What a plan includes
A well-designed estate plan puts the right people in control, keeps your assets out of probate, and makes sure nothing is left to chance. Every engagement begins with a real conversation and a single, flat-fee quote before any work begins.
Wills and comprehensive plans
Who inherits, on what terms, and on your timeline rather than a court's.
Revocable living trusts
Probate avoidance, privacy, and continuity if you cannot manage your own affairs.
Powers of attorney and advance directives
Someone you trust can act the moment you cannot, without a court appointment.
Guardianship planning
Short-term and long-term arrangements for minor and adult children alike.
Trust administration and funding
Guidance through the retitling that makes a trust real, tracked asset by asset until confirmed.
Beneficiary designation review
Retirement accounts and life insurance pass outside the will. We check that they match the plan.
Business succession
What happens to the company, and to the family, when an owner steps back or dies.
Digital assets
Accounts, files, and credentials integrated into the plan rather than lost with you.
The gap most Maryland and DC households miss
Federal permanence at the higher exemption has persuaded a great many regional households that estate tax is somebody else's problem. Maryland maintains its own materially lower threshold, and it is the only state that imposes both an estate tax and an inheritance tax. The inheritance tax is 10% on property passing to many beneficiaries outside the immediate family, such as nieces, nephews and friends. The District applies a separate, lower threshold of its own.
Add a Bethesda house, two retirement accounts, and a life insurance policy, and a couple comfortably under the federal number can be over the state one. The federal exemption went up. The state thresholds did not.
Which side of the line you are on is one of the first things we work out together. Start with a conversation, or take the free Check-Up to see what your current plan covers.
Washington State: its own estate tax, and no portability
Washington has no income tax, but it has one of the country's highest estate taxes. For deaths on or after 1 July 2026, each person's exclusion is $3 million, and the tax on everything above it is graduated, from 10% up to 20%.
No portability between spouses
Federal law lets a surviving spouse use the unused exemption of the first spouse to die. Washington does not. Whatever the first spouse's exclusion does not shelter is simply lost, so a plan that leaves everything outright to the survivor can waste it. A credit shelter trust, or a Washington-only QTIP election, is how the first exclusion is preserved.
A return can be due with no tax owed
The filing threshold is measured against the gross estate: everything owned or held in trust, wherever it is located. An estate can have to file even when the deductions bring the tax to zero.
The date of death decides the numbers
Both the exclusion and the rate schedule changed more than once between 2025 and 2026. A projection prepared under the earlier tables should be re-run before anyone relies on it.
Figures are for deaths on or after 1 July 2026, from the Washington Department of Revenue tables, and are stated as of September 2026. The statute contemplates inflation indexing, but the Department does not expect the amount to increase.
The estate planning spectrum
Estate planning is not one document. It is a spectrum, and most families move along it as their lives, assets, and goals evolve. These four instruments are the stops most clients consider.
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Will-based plan
Directs who inherits, names guardians for your children, and pairs with lifetime documents, meaning powers of attorney and health directives, for incapacity. Lowest cost, but it does not avoid probate on its own.
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Revocable living trust
Adds probate avoidance, privacy, and seamless management if you are incapacitated. For married couples it can mature at the first death into protective subtrusts. Only works for assets you actually retitle into it.
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Irrevocable non-grantor trust
A separate taxpayer that holds assets outside your control. Structured as a completed gift, it can move assets and their future growth out of your taxable estate and protect them from future creditors. Because the Section 1202 limitation applies per taxpayer, it also appears in founder planning. You give up control, and the benefits depend on how it is drafted, funded, and administered.
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SLANT
A spousal lifetime access non-grantor trust: a non-grantor trust in which your spouse can remain a beneficiary. Every distribution to your spouse requires the consent of an adverse party, who cannot be your spouse. It is demanding to draft and to administer, and it is not right for every couple.
| Will plan | Revocable trust | Non-grantor trust | SLANT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avoids probate | No | For funded assets | For transferred assets | For transferred assets |
| Your control | Full | Full; can revoke | Limited; irrevocable | Limited; spouse may benefit 1 |
| Estate tax | No effect alone | Can preserve both spouses' exemptions | Can remove assets and growth 2 | Can remove assets and growth 2 |
| Creditor protection | None | None during life | For future claims 3 | For future claims 3 |
| Taxed as | You | You | The trust | The trust |
| Own Section 1202 limitation | No | No | Possible 4 | Possible 4 |
| Upkeep | Low | Moderate | High | Highest |
1 Any distribution to your spouse requires an adverse party's consent.
2 Only if the transfer is a completed gift. Some non-grantor trusts are deliberately incomplete gifts and stay in your estate.
3 Subject to fraudulent transfer law and state rules. Neither trust is a self-settled asset protection trust, and a spousal trust carries divorce considerations.
4 Only if the trust is respected as a separate taxpayer, the stock qualifies at every relevant point, and the multiple-trust rules are satisfied.
This is a simplified comparison, not a prediction. Whether any benefit materializes depends on drafting, funding, administration, timing, and your facts. Advanced trusts sit on top of a foundation plan, never in place of one.
If your wealth is concentrated in stock that has not been sold yet, the planning is different and the timing is unforgiving. See how founder planning works.
Simpler than you think.
Estate planning is not only for the wealthy, and it does not have to be daunting. The goal is to spare your family unnecessary cost, delay, and confusion, whatever your net worth.
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A free Check-Up
We start with a free Estate Plan Check-Up, a short, no-pressure look at where you stand and what, if anything, you need.
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A consultation
A 30-minute conversation about your family, your assets, and what you want the plan to do. You leave with a single flat-fee quote before any work begins.
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A design session
Every decision gets made together. We handle the drafting. You make the choices that matter.
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Reviewed and confirmed
Before anything is signed, we walk back through every strategic decision together, covering trustees, structures, and tax elections, and confirm each one reflects your intent.
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You show up to sign
We bring you a finished plan, ready to sign.
One clear, flat-fee quote before any work begins. No hourly meter, no billing surprises.
Questions families ask
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
A will directs who inherits and names guardians for your children, but it does not avoid probate on its own. A revocable living trust adds probate avoidance, privacy, and seamless management if you become incapacitated, but it only works for assets you actually retitle into it.
Which one fits depends on what you own, where you live, and whether your estate is near a state tax threshold. That is one of the first questions we answer together, and the free Check-Up is a good way to take stock before that conversation.
Does Maryland have its own estate tax?
Yes. Maryland maintains its own estate tax threshold, which is materially lower than the federal exemption, and it is the only state that also levies an inheritance tax, at 10%, on property passing to many beneficiaries outside the immediate family. The District of Columbia applies a separate, lower threshold of its own.
A household comfortably under the federal number can be over the state one, which is the most common surprise we see.
Does Washington State have an estate tax?
Yes. For deaths on or after 1 July 2026, each person's exclusion is $3 million, and the tax above it is graduated from 10% to 20%. Washington has no portability: a surviving spouse cannot use the first spouse's unused exclusion, so a married couple's plan has to be drafted to use both.
Washington has no income tax, so its estate tax is easy to overlook, particularly for families who have moved there from another state.
What does it mean to fund a trust?
Funding is the step of actually retitling assets into the trust and updating beneficiary designations to match the plan. A trust that is signed but never funded does not control the assets it was meant to control.
Funding is where most plans quietly fail. We prepare the assignments, deeds, and transfer forms, process what custodians will accept from us, and track each asset on a funding schedule until it is confirmed. Some steps only you can take, and we tell you which those are and follow up until the record is complete.
I already have a plan. Is it worth reviewing?
Usually, yes, and the two things most worth checking are whether the trust was ever funded and whether the beneficiary designations still match. Plans also drift out of date after a move, a marriage, a divorce, a new child, or a change in the state thresholds.
The free Check-Up takes about five minutes and is built for exactly this.
How much does an estate plan cost?
Every engagement is quoted as a single flat fee, in writing, before any work begins. There is no hourly meter and no open-ended estimate. Once a fee is quoted it does not move unless you change the scope.
What the work costs depends on what you own and how complicated the funding is, so the number is set after we understand your situation rather than before.
Start with your facts, not a form
The right plan begins with understanding your family, your assets, and your goals. The free Check-Up takes about five minutes, runs entirely in your own browser, and is the easiest place to start.
Important notice. This page is general information for educational purposes, not legal or tax advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether anything described here is appropriate for you depends on facts specific to you and your state of residence, and the law changes. No outcome or result is promised or guaranteed. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Please consult us, or qualified counsel of your choosing, about your particular circumstances before acting.