Beyond Probate: Understanding Estates, Trusts, and Administration After Death

Summary:

Designed specifically for CPAs, this session explores what happens after a client passes away, including estate inventories, court accountings, probate tax, and key estate administration responsibilities. We'll compare estate and trust administration, discuss common misconceptions about trusts, and examine how trusts can benefit individuals and families at many wealth levels. We'll also review different types of trusts, their purposes, and the planning opportunities they can provide. Throughout the session, we'll highlight practical considerations that can help simplify administration and support families during times of transition.

Speaker Bio:  

For almost two decades, I have served individuals and families across Winchester and Northern Virginia, helping them navigate some of life's most important and most personal decisions.

After eleven years with a local firm, I founded Relational Estate & Elder Law, where my team and I focus on estate planning, elder law, and estate administration. We prepare Wills, Trusts, powers of attorney, and advance medical directives, but more than that, we help people face the future with clarity, confidence, and peace of mind.

Over the years, I have walked alongside families through some of their most difficult moments: aging parents, serious illness, and the loss of people they love. Those experiences have profoundly shaped me and the way I practice. I believe a truly good estate plan begins not with assets, but with relationships, because what we own matters only in the context of the people we care for.

My approach is simple: I take time to understand each client, the relationships they want to protect, and the legacy they hope to leave. Then I help them build a plan that reflects those priorities—one that provides for the people they love, reduces the burdens their family may face, and leaves their relationships in the strongest possible position.