In the realm of estate planning, our services are not just about distributing assets upon death but also about preserving wealth, minimizing taxes, protecting assets, and ensuring a smooth transition of assets in line with the client’s personal and business goals. 

Here are the specific services that we offer in the area of estate planning:

1. Estate Strategy & Wealth Preservation Planning

• Holistic Estate Planning: Providing a comprehensive estate plan that integrates the client’s business interests, family dynamics, charitable goals, and wealth management needs.

• Wealth Preservation & Legacy Planning: Helping clients protect their wealth across generations, minimizing the risk of asset depletion, and ensuring that their assets will support future generations in line with their values.

• Risk Management: Offering strategies to safeguard the estate against risks such as litigation, divorce, creditor claims, and economic volatility.

2. Trust & Foundation Structuring

• Creation of Family Trusts: Setting up family trusts to protect assets, provide for beneficiaries, and minimize estate taxes. These can also be designed to support specific family needs, such as education or healthcare.

• Charitable Foundations: Establishing charitable foundations to help clients achieve their philanthropic goals, including tax-efficient ways to donate assets and ensuring the foundation’s continuity.

• Private Trust Companies (PTCs): For clients with substantial wealth, setting up Private Trust Companies (PTCs) to manage family trusts and provide a centralized governance structure for family assets.

• Asset Protection Trusts: Setting up asset protection trusts in Switzerland or other jurisdictions to shield family assets from creditors, lawsuits, or other risks.

• International Trust Structures: For cross-border clients, offering guidance on international trust structures that comply with both Swiss and foreign jurisdictions, ensuring the client’s wishes are carried out globally.

3. Succession & Inheritance Planning

• Succession Planning for Family Businesses: Assisting with succession planning to ensure the smooth transition of family-owned businesses or assets, including the drafting of shareholder agreements and governance structures.

• Will & Testament Drafting: Providing expert legal assistance in drafting wills that clearly define how assets should be distributed, minimizing disputes and complications after death.

• Multi-Jurisdictional Estate Planning: Helping clients navigate the complexities of international estate planning, especially for those with assets in multiple countries, ensuring that local inheritance laws are respected, and minimizing conflicts.

• Estate Tax Optimization: Advising on how to minimize inheritance taxes, including the use of Swiss tax treaties, gifts, and strategic asset transfer to ensure the estate passes to beneficiaries in the most tax-efficient manner.

4. Trust & Estate Tax Planning

• Tax-Effective Wealth Transfer: Offering strategies for tax-efficient wealth transfer to heirs, reducing capital gains, inheritance, and estate taxes through structures such as trusts, foundations, and family limited partnerships.

• Gift & Estate Tax Planning: Helping clients plan for gifting assets during their lifetime, strategically using annual gift exclusions, lifetime gift exemptions, and charitable donations to reduce the size of their taxable estate.

• Tax Compliance: Ensuring the estate complies with both Swiss and international tax laws, including Swiss inheritance tax, wealth tax, gift tax, and VAT rules.

• Cross-Border Tax Planning: Providing advice on minimizing international estate tax liabilities, especially for clients with assets or beneficiaries abroad. This includes structuring trusts, foundations, or other entities to take advantage of tax treaties and reduce double taxation.

5. Life Insurance & Wealth Transfer Solutions

• Life Insurance as Estate Planning Tool: Advising on the use of life insurance to fund estate taxes, provide liquidity to heirs, or provide for family members who are not beneficiaries of other assets.

• Life Insurance Trusts: Setting up irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) to ensure life insurance proceeds pass to beneficiaries free from estate taxes.

• Structured Wealth Transfer: Creating structured wealth transfer plans to transfer assets over time, reducing the taxable estate and ensuring the client’s financial wishes are honored.

6. Business Continuity & Exit Planning

• Business Succession Planning: Creating an exit strategy for family businesses, ensuring continuity and management transition across generations. This includes drafting buy-sell agreements, setting up employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), and defining governance protocols.

• Sale of Business: For clients planning to sell their business, offering advice on structuring the sale, minimizing capital gains tax, and ensuring the estate receives maximum value from the transaction.

• Employee Benefits & Retirement Plans: Structuring retirement plans or employee benefit plans that can complement estate planning and business succession.

7. Asset Protection & Security

• Offshore Asset Protection: Advising on setting up offshore structures in jurisdictions that offer strong asset protection, such as Swiss foundations, Swiss trusts, or other countries with favorable asset protection laws.

• Asset Segregation: Offering guidance on how to segregate personal assets from business or operational assets, reducing risk exposure and enhancing protection.

• Protection from Creditors: Using trusts and other structures to protect wealth from potential future creditor claims or lawsuits.

8. Personal & Family Governance

• Family Governance Systems: Helping clients establish family governance frameworks to manage their wealth and legacy, define family values, and create rules for decision-making, wealth distribution, and family involvement in business.

• Family Charters: Drafting family charters or family constitutions to formalize governance practices, succession planning, and family objectives for future generations.

• Conflict Resolution Strategies: Offering mediation services and guidance on resolving potential family conflicts over inheritance, business succession, or wealth distribution.

9. Ethical Will & Legacy Planning

• Creating an Ethical Will: Assisting clients in creating ethical wills, which outline their values, beliefs, and life lessons for future generations, providing more than just material wealth.

• Philanthropic Legacy: Structuring charitable donations, endowments, and legacy gifts to ensure that clients’ philanthropic goals are met and their wealth contributes to social good long after their passing.

10. Posthumous Administration & Estate Execution

• Estate Administration & Executor Support: Offering comprehensive services for clients who are appointed as executors of estates, including asset inventory, debt settlement, and managing the distribution of assets in accordance with the will or trust.

• Probate & Litigation Support: Providing legal support to navigate the probate process in Switzerland or abroad and handling any disputes that may arise among heirs or beneficiaries.

• Trust Administration: For clients who have set up trusts, assisting with the ongoing administration of the trust, including the management of assets, disbursements to beneficiaries, and ensuring compliance with legal requirements.

11. Digital Estate Planning & Technology

• Digital Asset Planning: Helping clients plan for the transfer of digital assets (e.g., cryptocurrency, online accounts, intellectual property) and ensuring that these are incorporated into the estate plan.

• Secure Data Management: Offering services to ensure that digital assets and sensitive data (e.g., passwords, financial accounts) are securely managed and accessible to trusted family members or executors upon the client’s passing.

12. Education & Ongoing Advisory Services

• Estate Planning Education: Providing education for clients and their families on the importance of estate planning, the potential pitfalls, and how to manage complex estate issues effectively.

• Ongoing Estate Planning Review: Offering periodic reviews of estate plans to ensure they remain aligned with the client’s goals, reflect changes in tax laws, or accommodate changes in family or business circumstances.