Law office of Kimberly Vorsatz Carey in Burlingame, CA

With trust administrations, transactions related to sub-trust funding regarding brokerage accounts and real property, preparation and coordination for filing Estate Tax Returns as well as 1031 exchanges are part of the day to day operations of our office.

Whether you have an estate plan, or an outdated estate plan, attention must be given to whether your plan is in tune with your existing assets and wishes in addition to the current landscape of estate tax, capital gain tax, income tax and real property tax.

At the drafting level, Ms. Carey’s area of expertise includes the creation, amendment, restatement, revocation and/or termination of revocable and irrevocable trusts. Estate planning governs financial, guardianship to medical/personal decisions.

Due to the generations of clients her practice serves, Ms. Carey’s practice now mainly focuses on Trust Administration – in particular the transition of the estate plan due to resignation, diminished capacity or death. At the beginning of any administration, there is an immediate call to attention on the valuation and access to assets. Ms. Carey represents individual trustees (commonly family members of the trustor) as well as professional trustees (licensed fiduciaries and banks). Coordination is key with expert tax counsel, accountants, financial advisors, real estate brokers and title companies, appraisers, banks/financial institutions, and county tax assessors.

Most administrations have varied assets requiring use of different transfer procedures. Some accounts simply transfer with a right of survivorship or payable on death features. Other accounts will require a small estate affidavit for assets held in a decedent’s name alone or possibly a streamlined court procedure in order to avoid a formal probate. The transfer of real property in light of the passage of Prop 19 and meeting the related deadlines for filing Claims and Exemptions in order to preserve property tax are daunting tasks for any Trustee. Other common administrations include the sale of real property and review escrow documents for title and tax consistency in addition to coordination with real estate brokers and real estate counsel related to purchases and sales. In any event, all of these transfers raise questions for trustees and beneficiaries, in particular about tax liabilities and the coordination of trust and individual beneficiary income tax returns.

Ms. Carey has a high outcome of success with account custodians procuring the transfer of wealth such as life insurance claims, retirement benefit planning especially in light of the SECURE ACT 2.0 and establishing multi-million dollar trust accounts for the purpose of pooling trust assets for administration.