Recommendation for Estate Planning Attorney (Vancouver, Camas: real estate, insurance, lawyers)

[Pomelo]

Hello all, Happy New Years!

One of the items on the to do list is to get estate planning done. I did not see any previous threads in my searches, so any recommendations for lawyers/firms are appreciated.

Thanks!

[StealthRabbit]

These are all excellent Clark County estate attorneys, with a wide range of specialties, whom I have used or recommended.
ABOUT (K. Osborne)

https://nwlegacylaw.com/about-us/ (T. Hackett)

https://phr-law.com/attorneys/ (K. Holland)

Consider drafting up your comprehensive financial info and estate objective worksheet and run it by a few estate planners to see who best fits your needs. The more complete and detailed and decisive you are, the easier for the attorney. I provided all my entities and accounts, but no balances. Just aggregate amounts of accts and holdings, taxable, deferred, non-taxable. And real estate titling / ownership methods (quite important)
https://www.investopedia.com/article...g-attorney.asp
Estate.Planning.Worksheet.Single.3.9.2019.pdf

WA has a low estate tax threshold ($2.2m) , so it's worth your attention.
https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/other...estate-tax-faq

Initially mine was quite complex (in my 40s) but as the kids aged, and I set up a family foundation and a Donor Advised Fund (my best estate planning tool), and got all the medical directives in place, things are a little easier... (OR and WA are very different and specific for HC directives, you might desire to have both).

If you can consolidate investments, businesses, and accounts; that will be easier. I still have 7 LLC s and several properties in a few states. But.. my DAF will get and distribute to charity, all estate assets.

I used Pat Pabst many years ago (now retired) and she was very comprehensive and detailed, Kathryn Holland has kept our trust maintained as kids aged out of minority age. This is now a pretty high end attorney, far above my needs and wealth.


BTW... The big 3 (Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab) offer estate planning for clients. Sometimes free for HNW clients. They can be handy to oversee or offer general guidance and advice on estate planning, but you certainly want a state licensed professional to author your plan. Fidelity offered that, but after a review with their WA estate attorney, my existing plan was found sufficient.

Of course.... Fisher Investments (Camas) will love to chat with you about estate planning. (if you meet their $500k minimum)

[texasdiver]

We used Marilyn Reynolds who is the R in the Pabst Holland and Reynolds firm that was Stealth's second link above. Which is a downtown Vancouver law firm that specializes in estate planning. She was good and very competent. We didn't have anything particularly complex to deal with.

[Pomelo]

Thank you StealthRabbit for the prompt and comprehensive reply, and texasdiver for your recommendation as well!

[texasdiver]

One small point that should be obvious but isn't to some.

If you are in WA you need a WA estate attorney. The laws are different across the river in OR. Substantially different when it comes to things like inheritance taxes.

But many Vancouver residents wind up across the river in OR during their final days, especially if they are using insurance like Kaiser that has it's main hospitals based in Portland. So it is a very good thing to plan for dealing with two sets of state laws when it comes to things like medical power of attorney. WA attorneys based in Vancouver will know to do this because they deal with it every day. An OR attorney may not be as practiced in dealing with WA law.

So you need a will written in WA according to WA law, but you also need to plan for the possibility that you will be getting medical care in OR and possibly spending your final days in OR.