Maryland Wills, Trusts
& Estate Planning

prepared by Arden Law Firm’s experienced & licensed attorney(s).  Our lawyers are licensed in Maryland only. 

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MD Wills & Estate Planning

Arden Law Firm assists Maryland residents (and those domciled in Maryland but living elsewhere) with estate planning needs.
We offer flat-fee planning and aim to provide straight-forward, cost effective solutions to common planning needs. 

Contact our firm by phone at 410-216-7000 or fill out a consultation request form to set up an estate planning meeting or get more information. 

Estate Planning doesn’t have to be complicated!   

Almost all estate planning our firm handles is done on a flat-fee basis, with fees disclosed before your start planning. (In fact, you can see our current fees now on our pricing page). We generally handle planning for Maryland estates under $5 Million but can assist with basic or advanced planning, planning with trusts, small business owner planning and trust alternatives.
If you plan with Arden Law, you’ll go through a simple, 3 step process after you complete a planning questionnaire:

The Planning Process:

1.

Step 1:  Meet with an Experienced Arden Law Attorney to review your estate planning needs and goals.  We’ll discuss options and jointly decide on the best plan to meet your goals.  

2.

Step 2:  Our firm will prepare custom documents based on your situation as per your selected plan.  

3.

Step 3: We sit down together to review your planning documents, make any edits you desire and have the final documents witnessed & notarized. 

  Shouldn’t a planner understand their own planning documents?!

We’ve seen this happen time and again:  A client comes in with a 60 -100 page Trust instrument that they don’t fully understand for what seems to us a straight-forward planning situation, say planners who own a single piece of real estate worth less than $1 Million that they want divided equally among their adult kids.  Is a 95 page trust really necessary for this?  We don’t think so.  (on the other end of the spectrum we’ve seen people come in with a fill-in-the-blank document that misses critical terms - there really is a happy medium between these two extremes!)

Some situations do require advanced planning - estates over $24 Million, for example, or special needs trusts.  

At Arden Law, we do not use “one size fits all” forms but instead craft to each client’s individual situation - and while we write with legal requirements in mind, your documents won’t be buried in 50+ pages of dense legalease!  We can’t avoid using some technical phrasing and provisions but try very hard to make sure clients understand what is in their planning documents.  They will be crafted based on each client's needs.  

Basic Estate & Life Planning

Basic Estate & Life Planning should at a minimum cover two main things:  1) your wishes for who you want to handle your financial and medical affairs whlie you are living (for example, if you cannot due to short or long term incapacity) and  2) your wishes for wrapping up your affairs and distributing your assets when you die. 

Trust Packages

A Trust package provides for transfer without courts or the probate process.  A trust is not the only way to avoid probate, but trusts can be helpful in any of the following situations: 

  • Blended Families (his/hers/ours kids)

  • Families with Minor Children

  • Desire to manage and/or disburse assets for specific purposes

  • Property owned in multiple states

  • Estates with multiple beneficiaries or where it would be helpful to have a single responsible party manage

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Common Planning Documents

The following documents are central to most estate plans:

  • Will

  • Power of Attorney

  • Health Care Advance Directive

  • Revocable Living Trusts

  • Life Estate Deeds

  Frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to Wills:

A: In Maryland a Will must be in writing, signed by the planner (who is competant on the day they are planning) and witnessed by 2 witnesses who actually see the planner sign. 

A: In Maryland, the Personal Representative is the person who is charged with managing the Decedent’s estate.  Some states refer to this person as the Executor (person charged with executing the Will’s instructions).  In Maryland a Personal Representative might be the named Executor in the Will OR the person appointed by the Court to manage an estate where there is no Will.

A:  If someone dies without a valid Will, they are said to die “intestate” (without a Last Will and Testament).  Maryland law inserts a formula for inheriting in such cases (the law of intestate succession), which may or may not match what the person wanted. The current legal formulas are spelled out in the Estates & Trusts article of the Maryland Annotated Code.
This formula has changed multiple times in recent history, but usually is some variation of splitting an estate between a surviving spouse and children or between a surviving spouse and parents or if there is no spouse then to nearest living relatives.  In some cases without a Will property can “escheat” or revert to the State. 

A: the Personal Representative (PR) is responsible to file the Will with the Court (Register of Wills / Orpan’s Court) and open up an estate.  The Personal Representative needs to petition the court for appointment.  In situations where there is a Will but no probate property the PR files something called a Will of No Estate. 

A:  Yes, appointing a guardian for minor children is one of the important things to put in a Will. 

  Frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to Powers of Attorney:

A: A power of attorney (POA) goes into effect when the planner (the principal) specifies (either upon signing or perhaps on a certain event, such as a physician statement that the planner is no longer able to manage their affairs).  A POA  is only effective during the lifetime of the person who made it.  By law, the power of attorney immediately ceases on the principal’s death.  

A:  A limited power of attorney gives the authority to act for limited matters, for example a limited power of attorney might be used to give someone else the authority to sign settlement papers at a real estate transaction.  A general  power of attorney grants the agent a broad power to act in the princpal’s stead or generally deal with a variety of financial matters, for example a general POA usually gives authority to deal with matters involving real estate, banking, investments, taxes, etc.  

A:  Generally, No. While an attorney would want to look at the specific power of attorney to make a legal determination, an Agent cannot “self deal” or use the authority to benefit themselves.  An Agent must act to further the Principal’s interests, not their own.  In some cases, a Power of Attorney will grant specific authority to make gifts, usually to continue established patterns of giving (for example, if someone gave each child $10,000 and each grandchild $5,000 per year for the last 10 years and under a Power of Attorney that person gives express authority to gift, the Agent could likely continue to make those gifts. 

A:  A Living Will is a document that describes your wishes while you are living, for example what kind of medical interventions you might want.  This is often also called an “Advance Directive” because it describes in advance your desires if you were unable to make health care decisions at some point in the future.  Our firm includes a Living Will / Advance Directive / Health Care Power of Attorney in our planning packages. If you cannot afford an attorney or simply want to set this up on your own, you may want to check out the form Advance Directive generated by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.  It is usually a very good idea to have a Living Will - without it someone may need to seek guardianship.

A:  Customarily when people speak of a Power of Attorney they mean a Financial Power of Attorney.  Under a financial power of attorney someone is given authority to manage financial affairs (e.g., banking or real estate transactions) That is not the same thing as a Health Care Power of Attorney which names someone to make health care decisions.  Our firm typically includes a Health Care Power of Attorney or Health Care Agent designation in the Living Will / Medical Advance Directive.    

Talk with an Arden Law attorney to see if a trust or trust alternative makes sense for you.

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