Estate & Trust Administration
Estate Administration in Madison County, Illinois
When someone becomes disabled or dies, leaving you in charge, the attorneys at Coffey & McCracken Law Firm will help you through the process. We have decades of experience guiding people either as agents under powers of attorney, guardians, or estate representatives in handling the disabled or deceased person's affairs.
Experienced Counsel Guiding You Through Estate Administration
The process is not always simple, but we make it as straightforward for you as possible. We steer you through the maze of what needs to be done to collect and manage a person's assets and final affairs:
- To identify and take charge of assets
- To identify and pay debts
- To prepare and file income, estate and gift tax returns
- To manage and sell real estate or businesses
- To prepare accountings of your activities
- To make distributions and related decisions
We advise you about your duties and how to fulfill them in a lawful, efficient and timely way. We have the experience and the systems in place to assure that you do not miss deadlines or delay actions that should be taken. We will advise you about the most cost-efficient way to handle an estate. For example, the use of a small estate affidavit may avoid a court-involved probate estate under certain circumstances.
We counsel you about how to handle conflicting beneficiary (or even creditor) demands in a way that protects you while fulfilling your duties. If a dispute arises (such as a will contest or trust dispute), we will advise you about meeting that challenge while being sensitive to family relationships that may be threatened by it.
Upon the conclusion of our representation, you can be confident that you fulfilled your duties timely, efficiently and lawfully.
We also represent people who are beneficiaries of estates. Most often our involvement is to help assure the beneficiary that the person in charge is handling matters properly and that the beneficiary's interests in the estate are protected. Often, a person in charge of an estate will not have an attorney, or will have an attorney who is inexperienced in estate administration. In these cases, our estate administration experience often results in a more timely and efficient administration of the estate, as we provide guidance to the estate representative or her attorney during the course of our representation of a beneficiary.
Contact
To contact our firm, please call our Edwardsville office or simply e-mail the firm.
