Trusts

Experienced Trust Estate Attorney

Trusts are essential tools for any estate plan. Essentially, a trust is a legal entity or a fictitious person, created to own and manage assets. As the grantor of the trust, you can allow yourself use of the assets it holds, such as a home, and provide for its transfer after your passing. At the Cormac McEnery Law Firm, we help our clients create trusts and use them strategically to address a variety of needs. We make sure we get to know our clients, their circumstances and their concerns before making any recommendations, because trusts work best when they are crafted with a specific purpose in mind. For more than 35 years, attorney Cormac McEnery has helped New Yorkers benefit from legal tools which were once exclusive to the wealthy. We can help you and your family as well.
Trust Attorney — Gavel On The Table With Files in City Island, NY

Types of Trusts

Trust instruments are flexible, but you have to be certain about your goals before selecting its form. Here is a sample of different trust instruments our firm has helped create:
  • Asset protection trust (APT) — By creating a trust to hold particular assets, you separate them from other personal holdings. When done properly, this creates a wall of protection from creditors and lawsuit claimants.
  • Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT) — This particular APT prevents assets from being counted against you for Medicaid eligibility. Ideally, you can keep the use of your home and qualify for long-term nursing care.
  • Charitable trusts— Grantors who have a favorite cause can create a trust to disperse funds to different organizations.
  • Credit shelter trusts— You can create a family trust to hold assets, thereby reducing the size of your overall estate so the remainder does not trigger state or federal estate tax.
  • Irrevocable life insurance trusts — You can create a trust from your life insurance policy that allows your heirs to receive a tax-free bequest. To do so, you must surrender your ownership rights, so you can’t cash the policy in, borrow against its cash value or change your beneficiaries.
  • Qualified personal residence trusts— To protect your home from creditors, you can endow a trust and retain a limited right to live there.
  • Qualified terminable interest property— This trust is used for succession purposes by people in a second marriage. When the grantor passes on, the spouse receives income from the trust. When the spouse passes on, the grantor’s children from the first marriage inherit the remaining assets.
  • Revocable (living) trusts— Similar to the MAPT, this trust holds and manages your property while you continue to live there, then passes the property to your heirs upon your death. You retain control and can modify or dissolve the trust at any time.
  • Special needs trusts— The trusts holds funds for the benefit of an incapacitated person. Recipients receive an income, but not enough to disqualify them from SSI benefits. 

Safeguard Your Future

When you retain the Cormac McEnery Law Firm, you get personalized care leading to an appropriate estate plan that addresses your needs. To learn more about how trusts can safeguard your future, contact our office today!

Experienced Counsel

Mr. McEnery has practiced law for more than 35 years. A noted authority on elder law and estate planning, he teaches Continuing Legal Education (CLE) courses for practicing attorneys. You can be confident in his legal knowledge and his ability to represent your interests, even against formidable opposition.

Personalized Service

Mr. McEnery and his colleagues are amiable and relaxed in their interactions with clients, but strict in their adherence to professional standards for prompt, thorough communication. Phone calls and emails are returned in a timely manner, clients are copied on all correspondence and kept fully informed throughout the legal process.

Ethical Representation

Mr. McEnery fully appreciates the responsibility of representing clients, such as elders in declining health, who are especially vulnerable. He maintains the highest ethical standards while working earnestly for his clients' best interests.

Knowledgeable and 
Helpful Support Staff

The importance of experienced and dedicated paralegals cannot be overstated. Our practice benefits from friendly, highly-professional paralegals who have longstanding relationships with the firm and are heavily invested in client satisfaction.
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