Practice Transaction Integration
We coordinate estate planning with practice succession strategy. Whether selling, affiliating with a DSO, or passing to family, your estate documents support rather than conflict with your transition plans.
Protect your wealth, coordinate practice succession, and ensure your family benefits from your life's work.
Schedule ConsultationYour practice represents a substantial portion of your net worth. Estate planning ensures it transfers smoothly to your family, protects against unexpected events, and minimizes tax burden.
We coordinate estate planning with practice succession strategy. Whether selling, affiliating with a DSO, or passing to family, your estate documents support rather than conflict with your transition plans.
Practice owners face liability exposure. Strategic planning through trusts and entity structures protects accumulated wealth from claims while maintaining access for your family.
Strategic use of exemptions, trusts, and gifting minimizes estate and gift tax burden. We coordinate practice sale timing with wealth transfer strategies.
The main areas where having specialized counsel makes a difference
Your practice sale generates substantial liquidity that needs strategic management. Establishing estate planning before the sale lets proceeds flow directly to appropriate structures without requiring post sale restructuring.
We coordinate entity succession provisions, incapacity planning for practice operations, and ensure estate documents work with business agreements rather than creating conflicts.
Trust structures provide creditor protection for beneficiaries. Business entity separation isolates practice liability from personal wealth. Real estate ownership through appropriate structures adds protection layers.
We build layered strategies addressing different threat types while preserving access for legitimate family needs.
Current estate tax exemption is $13.99 million per individual, scheduled to drop to approximately $7 million in 2026. Strategic planning uses current higher exemption through lifetime gifts to irrevocable trusts.
We analyze GRAT structures, charitable planning integration, and dynasty trust planning for multi generational wealth transfer.
Practice owner incapacity creates immediate operational challenges. Power of attorney provisions address practice management authority. Trust provisions enable seamless trustee oversight without court intervention.
Healthcare surrogate designation and living will document medical preferences, preventing family disputes during difficult times.
Schedule a consultation to discuss estate planning needs, evaluate current documents, and develop strategy protecting your wealth.
Schedule ConsultationWhat to expect when working with us on estate planning
We assess your family situation, financial circumstances, practice ownership, and estate planning objectives. Review existing documents to identify gaps and coordination issues.
Detailed analysis of assets, liabilities, income sources, and estate tax exposure. Practice valuation, real estate holdings, investments, retirement accounts, and insurance coverage all get evaluated.
Customized estate planning strategy addressing your objectives and circumstances. We explain recommended trust structures, wealth transfer techniques, and asset protection strategies with clear reasoning.
Preparation of estate planning documents including revocable living trust, pour over will, durable power of attorney, healthcare surrogate, and living will. Additional documents as needed for irrevocable trusts or business succession.
Guided document execution with proper signing and notarization. Trust funding guidance for real estate deeds, financial accounts, and business interests. Beneficiary designation updates coordinated with overall plan.
Periodic review every 3 to 5 years or following major life events. Law change monitoring identifies planning opportunities. When selling your practice or completing major transactions, we review estate plan alignment.
Deep dives into specific estate planning issues for practice owners
Generic estate planning ignores the complexity of practice ownership. Your practice is illiquid, requires specialized knowledge to manage, generates ongoing operational obligations, and ties to your professional license.
Most estate attorneys don't understand dental practice dynamics. They write trusts that create problems when you try to sell the practice. They draft powers of attorney without authority for practice management decisions. They miss coordination between estate documents and partnership agreements.
Practice focused estate planning addresses who can make practice decisions if you're incapacitated, how practice ownership transfers at death, what happens to patients and staff during transition, and how to preserve practice value rather than letting it disintegrate.
Current federal estate tax exemption is $13.99 million per person. In 2026, that drops to approximately $7 million unless Congress acts. That's a $7 million reduction in how much wealth you can transfer tax free.
Most practice owners approaching retirement have accumulated wealth exceeding $7 million when you combine practice value, real estate, investment accounts, retirement savings, and life insurance. After 2026, that wealth faces 40% estate tax.
The solution is using current exemption before it drops through gifts to irrevocable trusts. But this requires planning NOW. You can't make 2025 gifts in 2026. Once exemption drops, it's gone.
We analyze whether your estate will face tax exposure under reduced exemption, calculate optimal gifting amounts using current higher exemption, structure irrevocable trusts receiving gifts while maintaining appropriate family access, and coordinate gifting with practice sale timing if you're planning to sell.
Holding practice ownership in your revocable trust provides probate avoidance, incapacity planning, and privacy. But implementation requires attention to state professional licensing rules, lender consent if practice has debt, and operating agreement coordination with partners.
The mechanics involve assigning membership interests or stock to the trust, updating operating or shareholder agreements to reflect trust ownership, and ensuring you as trustee have proper authority to continue practice management.
Benefits include avoiding probate court proceedings to transfer practice at death, enabling successor trustee to manage practice sale if you become incapacitated, and keeping practice ownership private rather than public through probate.
Timing matters. Transfer practice ownership to trust before sale if selling soon. That lets buyer acquire directly from trust, streamlining the transaction and establishing proper structure for proceeds management.
If you own practice with partners, your buy sell agreement controls what happens to your ownership at death. Problems arise when buy sell provisions conflict with estate planning intentions.
Common issues include buy sell requiring sale to partners at formula price below fair market value, life insurance funding inadequate to complete purchase forcing installment payments, valuation methodology in buy sell differing from estate tax valuation creating disputes, and spouse expecting to inherit practice ownership when buy sell requires sale to partners.
Coordination ensures buy sell valuation methodology aligns with estate planning values, life insurance funding is adequate to complete purchase at death, estate documents anticipate receiving sale proceeds rather than practice ownership, and family understands what actually happens rather than having wrong expectations.
Retirement accounts often represent $1 to 3 million of practice owner wealth. But they carry income tax burden that other assets don't. Strategic planning coordinates retirement account distribution with estate objectives.
Key decisions include whether to name spouse as primary beneficiary enabling rollover and continued deferral, when to name trust as beneficiary for control and protection versus individual beneficiaries for maximum stretch, how Roth conversion affects overall estate tax and income tax burden, and whether to designate charity as beneficiary for retirement accounts while leaving other assets to family.
The math matters. Retirement accounts left to heirs carry income tax burden up to 37% federal plus state tax. Same assets left to charity generate no tax. If you have charitable intentions, retirement accounts are the most tax efficient asset to give while preserving other assets for family.
Practice debt including equipment financing, lines of credit, and real estate mortgages requires planning. Personal guarantees mean debt becomes your estate's obligation even if practice entity is separate.
Life insurance can fund debt payoff at death, ensuring practice can be sold or transferred without debt burden. Buy sell arrangements should address whether practice purchase price is reduced by debt or buyer assumes debt separately.
If you own the real estate separately from the practice, coordinate debt treatment between practice sale and property disposition. Buyers may want to assume real estate debt as part of overall transaction rather than requiring payoff at closing.
Standard revocable trusts provide no asset protection for you. But irrevocable trusts for family members protect inherited wealth from beneficiaries' creditors, divorce proceedings, and poor financial decisions.
Structure matters. Discretionary distribution provisions prevent creditors from forcing distributions. Independent trustee selection ensures distributions aren't controlled by beneficiary. Spendthrift clauses prohibit beneficiary from pledging trust assets as collateral.
This protects wealth you spent decades building from being lost to your child's business failure, malpractice claim, or divorce. Assets stay in trust for their benefit but beyond reach of their creditors.
For practice owners with substantial wealth, this protection is essential. You don't work 30 years building $10 million in wealth just to have it disappear in your child's lawsuit.
Yes. Practice sale generates substantial liquidity requiring strategic management. Establishing estate planning before the sale lets proceeds flow directly to appropriate structures.
Coordination between practice sale counsel and estate planning ensures transaction structure supports tax efficient wealth transfer and avoids creating problems requiring subsequent correction.
Trust ownership provides probate avoidance, incapacity planning, and privacy while creating no income tax consequences. It simplifies practice succession by enabling trustee to manage sale or transition without court involvement.
Considerations include state professional practice ownership requirements, lender consent if practice has debt, and operating agreement provisions requiring partner approval for ownership changes.
Federal estate tax applies to estates exceeding $13.99 million per individual in 2025, scheduled to drop to approximately $7 million in 2026. Married couples can effectively double this through proper planning.
Strategic planning addresses lifetime exemption use via gifts to irrevocable trusts, trust structures enabling both spouses' exemptions, valuation discount strategies, and life insurance trusts providing estate liquidity.
Without planning, practice may cease operations as staff departs and patients seek care elsewhere. Value deteriorates rapidly without active management.
Strategic planning includes buy sell agreements funded with life insurance, operating agreement succession provisions, estate plan coordination, and clear communication plans preserving practice goodwill during transition.
Tell us about your estate planning objectives and we'll set up a call to discuss your situation.