A complete New York estate plan is built from four core documents working together: a Last Will and Testament, one or more trusts, a durable power of attorney, and a health care proxy. The will directs who inherits your property and names a guardian for minor children; trusts let you avoid probate and protect assets; the power of attorney lets
For deaths occurring on or after January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026, New York gives every estate a basic exclusion amount of $7,350,000 — meaning an estate at or below that figure owes no New York estate tax. But New York hides a trap that most states do not: the estate tax “cliff.” Once an estate exceeds 105% of
If you are wondering how Medicaid planning fits into your New York estate, here is the short answer: long-term care Medicaid in New York reviews the last five years of your financial transactions when you apply for nursing-home (institutional) coverage, and any uncompensated transfers made during that window can trigger a penalty period of ineligibility. The most reliable way to
To include digital assets in your New York estate plan, you must inventory every online account and digital file you own, grant your fiduciaries legal authority to access them, and coordinate that authority across your Will, your trust, and your durable Power of Attorney. In New York, your executor or agent does not automatically have the right to log in
To avoid probate in New York, you move assets out of your sole name before death so they pass automatically — most often through a revocable living trust (EPTL Article 7), beneficiary designations, payable-on-death accounts, and properly structured joint ownership. Probate is the court process of validating a will and authorizing the executor to act; if an asset already has
For most New Yorkers the honest answer is: you almost certainly need a will, and many people benefit from adding a trust — but the two tools do very different jobs and a will alone rarely covers everything. A will directs who inherits your property and names a guardian for minor children, but it must pass through probate in the