- Wills & Trusts: Establish the foundation of your estate plan with carefully crafted legal instruments that define how your assets will be managed and distributed. We help design and implement a complete estate package — including living trusts, wills, medical directives, and powers of attorney — to help clarify your intentions and document them appropriately.
- Trust Funding & Review: Creating a trust is only the first step — proper funding is what brings it to life. We guide you through the process of titling assets, aligning beneficiary designations, and coordinating accounts to help ensure your trust functions as intended. Our team also conducts regular reviews to update your plan as laws, tax rules, and family circumstances evolve.
- Wealth Transfer & Protection: Our estate planning approach is designed to address more than the basics. We focus on tax-efficient strategies to seek to minimize estate and gift taxes, reduce probate exposure, and create seamless paths for multi-generational wealth transfer. Whether your goals include providing for loved ones, supporting philanthropic causes, or building a lasting family legacy, we can help structure solutions such as irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), charitable remainder or lead trusts (CRTs/CLTs), spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs), and grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs) to meet your specific objectives.
Timeless Wealth, Strategically Supported
Your estate plan is more than a set of legal documents — it’s a roadmap to help protect your family, preserve your legacy, and ensure your wishes are carried out with clarity and confidence. At Ascend, we seek to simplify this complex process by coordinating your plan with your overall wealth strategy.
- Legacy and Family Stewardship: A well-designed estate plan can help preserve more than assets — it preserves intent, values, and relationships. We help families prepare heirs for the responsibilities of wealth through thoughtful education, succession conversations, and clear governance structures intended to support unity across generations.
- Integration with Your Financial Plan: Estate and trust planning can be more effective when it’s coordinated with your investment, tax, and insurance strategies. Our integrated approach is designed to help your plan evolve in harmony with your broader financial picture — from portfolio design to charitable giving to retirement distributions — working to reduce the likelihood of unaligned outcomes.
- An Ongoing, Integrated Process: At Ascend, estate planning isn’t a one-time project. We view it as an evolving partnership — adapting your plan as your life, family, and wealth change. This proactive process is designed to help keep your estate aligned with your intentions and support your legacy goals for generations to come.
