About our services

Our firm offers a variety of estate planning and probate law related services. With our staff of highly skilled attorneys, your matter is in good hands. Please contact us for a consultation.

Wills, Trust and Probate Law

Probate is the court supervised process of proving the validity of a will and distributing property under the terms of the will or in accordance with a state’s intestacy law in the absence of a will. Wills are a writing specifying the beneficiaries who are to inherit the testator’s assets and naming a representative to administer the estate and be responsible for distributing the assets to the beneficiaries. Trusts are arrangements whereby property is legally owned and managed by an individual or corporate fiduciary as trustee for the benefit of another, called a beneficiary, who is the equitable owner of the property.

Estate Planning

Estate Planning is a process involving the counsel of professional advisors who are familiar with your goals and concerns, your assets and how they are owned, and your family structure. It can involve the services of a variety of professionals, including your lawyer, accountant, financial planner, life insurance advisor, banker and broker.

Estate planning covers the transfer of property at death as well as a variety of other personal matters and may or may not involve tax planning. The core document most often associated with this process is your will. 

Location

1 Corpus Christi Place, Suite 112
Hilton Head Island, SC 29928

Phone: 1-843-785-7590

Fax: 1-866-928-4559

HowellLawFirm@gmail.com

By Appointment Only

Guardianships and Conservatorships

A Guardianship ("Guardian") is an individual or bank or trust company appointed by a court to act for a minor or incapacitated person (the “ward”). A guardian of the person is empowered to make personal decisions for the ward. A guardian of the property (also called a “committee”) manages the property of the ward.

A Conservatorship ("Conservator") is an individual or a corporate fiduciary appointed by a court to care for and manage the property of an incapacitated person, in the same way as a guardian cares for and manages the property of a minor.

Powers of attorney

Powers of Attorney (POA) is an authorization, by a written document, that one individual may act in another's place as agent or attorney-in-fact with respect to some or all legal and financial matters. The scope of authority granted is specified in the document and may be limited by statute in some states. A power of attorney terminates on the death of the person granting the power (unless “coupled with an interest”) and may terminate on the subsequent disability of the person granting the power (unless the power is “durable” under the instrument or state law).

The above descriptions provided by the American Bar Association. 

Will and Trust Contests and Probate Litigation

Beginning in 2005, we noted that we had more probate and trust litigation in the previous five years in the Hilton Head Island and Beaufort areas than we had seen in the previous 20 years.  Every 5 years since, we have more or less experienced the same.

With this comes a tremendous amount of experience in handling adversarial probate and trust matters. While we hope that you do not need these types of services, you can rest assured that we have the necessary experience to assist you.  To the extent necessary, we can also put together a team to handle the most complex probate and trust litigation cases.

If you are the beneficiary of a probate estate or trust and are not being treated fairly, or you are the trustee of a trust, or personal representative of an estate with difficult beneficiaries, give us a call to set up a free initial consultation for up to 1 hour.

We may be able to help.

Also, please keep in matter the best way to avoid such litigation is proper estate planning. Many law firms dabble in estate planning work. We do not.

We are solely a Trust and Estates Law Firm.

Estate Planning, Probate and Trust matters are all that we do.

With our many years of experience and expertise in these areas, we can help mitigate the possibility of litigation before it starts.