A complete New York estate plan is built on four coordinated, professionally drafted instruments: a Last Will and Testament, one or more trusts, a durable power of attorney, and a health care proxy. Together these documents decide who inherits your property, who manages your finances if you cannot, and who makes your medical decisions when you are unable to speak
For deaths occurring on or after January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026, New York’s basic exclusion amount is $7,350,000. An estate valued at or below that figure owes no New York estate tax. The catastrophe — and the reason this article exists — is the New York estate tax “cliff.” Once a taxable estate exceeds 105% of the exemption,
Medicaid planning is the disciplined, advance structuring of your assets so that long-term care — a nursing home, an assisted-living facility, or in-home aides — does not consume your life savings before government benefits step in. In New York, the single most important rule to understand is the five-year look-back: when you apply for institutional (nursing-home) Medicaid, the agency reviews
To include digital assets in your New York estate plan, you must do three things in a coordinated, professional manner: take a complete inventory of every digital asset and account, grant your fiduciaries clear legal authority to access them, and integrate that authority into the four core instruments of a comprehensive New York plan — your will, your trust(s), your
To avoid probate in New York, you transfer assets out of your individual name during your lifetime — most reliably through a properly funded revocable living trust under EPTL Article 7 — and you layer in beneficiary designations, payable-on-death registrations, and coordinated titling so that assets pass by operation of law rather than through the Surrogate’s Court. Done correctly, this
For most New Yorkers, the honest answer is: you need a will, and you may also need a trust — but neither one alone is a complete plan. A will directs who receives your property and names the people responsible for carrying out your wishes, while a trust controls how and when assets pass and can keep them out of
How New York estate planning works when your spouse is a non-citizen, including QDOT trusts, the marital deduction gap, and when to call an immigration attorney.