SCOPE OF PRACTICE

The scope of the practice at our firm is very focused. We represent individuals and closely-held businesses and their owners in Estate Planning and Elder Law, Business Planning and Real Estate matters.

ESTATE PLANNING & ELDER LAW

The goal of our Estate Planning and Elder Law practice is to ensure that our clients’ hopes, fears, dreams and aspirations for themselves and their families are addressed. Our Estate Planning and Elder Law practice includes the design and drafting of estate plans and asset protection plans and the administration of trusts and probate estates.

We design and draft will-based and trust-based estate plans for both taxable and non-taxable estates. Our essential estate plans include wills, durable financial powers of attorney and durable powers of attorney for health care. For trust-based estate plans, essential estate planning also includes revocable living trusts, living wills, anatomical gift forms and DocuBank emergency information cards and may include other planning documents.

As part of our Elder Law practice, we design, draft and implement asset protection plans to ensure that family assets are not exhausted for nursing home care. We prepare the Medicaid Application and assist the family in following the application through the approval process.

For taxable estates (over $2 million for single persons or $4 million for a married couple in 2007 and 2008), advanced planning may be appropriate. Advance planning for taxable estates may include irrevocable trusts, irrevocable demand right trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, intentionally defective grantor trusts, family limited liability companies and family limited partnerships.

As part of our estate planning practice, we also counsel charitably inclined individuals and charitable organizations on a variety of charitable and planned giving methods and techniques. These methods and techniques have included outright gifts, gifts in trust, charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, community foundation gifts and creating charitable organizations, public foundations, private family foundations and supporting organizations.

We represent Personal Representatives in the supervised and unsupervised administration of probate estates in all Michigan Probate Courts. We also represent families in need of guardians or conservators of family members who are legally incapacitated or developmentally disabled.

We counsel Successor Trustees in the administration of trusts both during a disabled Trustmaker’s lifetime and after the Trustmaker’s death. For more information on estate planning practice, click on the Estate Planning button above.

BUSINESS PLANNING

We assist closely held businesses, their owners and their families in the operation of their businesses. The services we provide to ongoing businesses include the day-to-day legal matters such as the drafting and review of contracts, business agreements and financing documents and couselling on contemplated or past transactions. For owners looking to expand or separate their businesses, we have designed the plan and drafted the documents necessary for the consummation of mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs.

For new businesses, we consult with prospective owners to determine the most appropriate business entity and draft the formation and operational documents of the business such as incorporation documents, limited liability company documents, partnership documents or sole proprietorship documents. For the acquisition of existing businesses, we review the tax and business circumstances to determine the most advantageous structure of the sale as a stock or asset purchase. Then we prepare the purchase agreement for the transaction and follow the transaction through closing.

Business succession plans are a necessity for business owners to ensure that they are provided for during retirement or disability and that their families and/or business partners are taken care of after they are gone. We design, draft and implement a variety of business succession plans including buy/sell agreements, redemption agreements, gifting programs and installment sales agreements.

Our clients have included businesses in the following industries: auto suppliers, manufacturers, government contractors, residential builders, general contractors, mechanical contractors, tool & die makers, retailers, trucking companies, condominium associations, group home operators, residential & commercial developers, golf course operators, underground construction contractors, farmers, wholesalers, non-profit charitable organizations, surveyors & engineers, municipal planners, architects, metal fabricators, realtors, printing companies, hunt clubs, restaurants & other food service establishments, auctioneers, monument companies, mortgage companies, concrete & paving stone contractors, physicians & physician groups, welders, attorneys and law firms, manufacturing machinery & equipment repair, radio broadcasters and management consultants.

REAL ESTATE

We represent a variety of residential, commercial and industrial real estate owners, builders and developers in the purchase, sale, lease and subdividing of vacant land, apartments, homes, buildings and condominiums.

We consult with the client to determine their goals and objectives regarding the real estate transaction and structure it in the most advantageous way for them. Real estate purchase agreements, lease agreements, leases with options to purchase, build-to-suit agreements, condominium association formation documents for a variety of residential, commercial and industrial real estate are drafted or reviewed by us.

The real estate purchase agreement (also called the “Offer”) is the single most important document in the sale or purchase of real estate. The real estate purchase agreement governs all of the terms and conditions regarding the sale. We draft these agreements or review them prior to signing by the client. Once the real estate purchase agreement is signed, we have very little input, if any, into the terms and conditions of the transaction.

We have assisted in the deferral of capital gains taxes on the sale of real estate through the use of Section 1031 tax-free exchanges. We have also assisted in the acquisition of HUD, MSHDA and MIHOME grants for the construction or rehabilitation of housing for disadvantaged individuals.