Estate Planning Attorneys in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Estate planning is ultimately about making thoughtful decisions for the people and causes that matter most to you. A well-designed plan provides clarity for your family, preserves what you have worked hard to build, and ensures that your wishes are carried out in a way that reflects your values.

Every family is different. Some clients are focused on providing for a surviving spouse, others on protecting children, preserving a family business, planning for a family cottage, supporting charitable causes, or ensuring that future generations are cared for responsibly. Estate planning provides the framework to accomplish those goals.

Conlin, McKenney & Philbrick, P.C. brings together a team of estate planning attorneys with diverse backgrounds, broad experience, and deep roots in the local community. The firm’s attorneys regularly assist individuals and families with a wide range of planning needs, from basic wills and trusts to sophisticated planning involving business interests, family real estate, charitable giving, and multi-generational wealth transfer. Because estate planning frequently overlaps with business, real estate, and tax issues, CMP Law’s collaborative approach allows clients to receive broad, coordinated advice tailored to their circumstances.

Building an Estate Plan Under Michigan Law

Michigan’s Estates and Protected Individuals Code, together with the Michigan Trust Code, provide the legal framework governing estate and incapacity planning in Michigan. It addresses matters such as inheritance, fiduciary appointments, probate administration, guardianships, conservatorships, and trust administration. A well-built estate plan allows individuals and families to tailor these decisions to their own goals, values, and circumstances rather than relying on the default rules provided by Michigan law.

A complete plan often includes several core documents:

• Last Will and Testament. Names a personal representative, designates guardians for minor children, and directs property distribution. Without a Last Will and Testament, Michigan’s intestacy statutes control who inherits, often with results that do not match what you would choose.
• Revocable Trust. Allows assets to transfer outside probate, maintains privacy, and eliminates the need for ancillary probate proceedings in other states, which is particularly important for families who own a vacation home, a Florida condo, or other real property outside Michigan. Many plans pair a revocable trust with a pour-over will, which captures any assets not transferred into the trust during life and directs them into the trust at death.
• Durable Power of Attorney. Authorizes a trusted agent to manage banking, investments, real estate, and other financial affairs during incapacity. Without a Durable Power of Attorney, your family may need to petition the probate court for a conservatorship, a process that is public, costly, and slow.
• Patient Advocate Designation. Appoints a trusted individual to make medical and end-of-life decisions if you are unable to communicate your wishes. A Patient Advocate Designation is legally separate from a financial power of attorney and must meet specific execution requirements under Michigan law.

An effective plan also accounts for assets that may pass outside the will or trust entirely. Examples of this include retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and jointly titled assets. These assets can be transferred by beneficiary designation or operation of law. Coordinating these designations with your overall plan is an essential step that is often overlooked and can be costly if not done carefully.

Last Will and Testament

A Last Will and Testament is a key component of most estate plans. It designates a personal representative to administer your estate, names guardians for minor children, and directs how your property should be distributed after death. For parents of young children, the guardian designation alone makes a will indispensable. Without one, a court will make that decision without the benefit of knowing your wishes.

When a person dies without a will, Michigan’s intestacy statutes control who inherits and in what shares. Those default rules follow a fixed statutory formula that does not account for your relationships, your values, or your circumstances. A surviving spouse may share the estate with children or in-laws in ways that feel contrary to your intentions. A beloved friend, a charity, or a family member with a particular need receives nothing. A will replaces those default outcomes with your own choices.

It is important to understand, however, that a will does not control all assets. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and jointly titled property generally pass by beneficiary designation or operation of law, regardless of what a will provides. A will also must pass through the probate process, which is a court-supervised proceeding that is a matter of public record and can take months or longer to complete depending on the complexity of the estate. For many families, a revocable trust is used alongside a will to minimize the assets that pass through probate and to provide greater flexibility and privacy. The two documents work together: a pour-over will captures any assets not transferred to the trust during life and directs them into the trust at death, ensuring nothing falls outside the plan.

Revocable Trust

A revocable trust is a legal arrangement you create and control during your lifetime. You transfer assets into the trust, typically serve as your own trustee, and designate successor trustees to step in seamlessly if you become incapacitated or die. Because the trust is revocable, you retain full authority to amend, revoke, or change the trust’s terms at any time.

Under the Michigan Trust Code, a properly structured and funded revocable trust allows your estate to transfer entirely outside of probate, avoiding the cost, delay, and public record of court administration. While careful drafting of the trust agreement is important, the document alone is not enough. Assets must be retitled into the trust’s name during your lifetime or directed to your trust at death. A trust that exists on paper but holds no assets provides none of these benefits. Keeping the trust funded as you acquire new assets is as important as drafting it.

In addition to probate avoidance, trusts offer planning flexibility that a will alone cannot provide. A trust can protect a beneficiary from creditors or from the financial consequences of a divorce. It can stagger distributions to a young or financially irresponsible heir rather than delivering a lump sum at death. It can hold a family business or investment property across generations without triggering a forced sale or a change in management. For families with real property outside Michigan, it eliminates the need for separate ancillary probate proceedings in each state where property is held.

We work closely with your trusted professionals and routinely coordinate trust planning with the firm’s business and real estate practice groups when business succession or property structuring issues are involved, ensuring that your trust works in concert with your operating agreements, buy-sell arrangements, and title structures.

Incapacity Planning in Michigan

While many people focus on how assets will pass after death, planning for the possibility of incapacity is often just as important.

Financial Powers of Attorney

Michigan adopted the Uniform Power of Attorney Act, which became effective July 1, 2024. The statute modernized agent responsibilities, expanded default authority, and clarified the duties owed by agents to the people who appoint them. Powers of attorney executed before July 1, 2024, remain valid under Michigan law, but families with older documents should have them reviewed to confirm they reflect current statutory language and adequately cover the agent’s intended authority.

A durable power of attorney allows your chosen agent to manage banking, investments, real estate, business interests, and contractual matters during periods of incapacity, without court intervention. Without a financial power of attorney, your loved ones lack legal authority to act on your behalf. A family that has not planned may need to petition the probate court for a formal conservatorship, a public proceeding that is slow, expensive, and entirely avoidable.

Patient Advocate Designations

A patient advocate designation authorizes a trusted individual to make medical and end-of-life decisions if you are unable to communicate your wishes.

Without a patient advocate designation in place, family members who wish to make medical decisions on your behalf may need to petition the Washtenaw County Probate Court for formal guardianship, a process that is public, costly, and often pursued during an already difficult time.

A complete incapacity plan should also include a HIPAA authorization, which is a separate document permitting healthcare providers to share medical information with your agent and family members. Without it, even a named patient advocate may encounter resistance from providers who are legally prohibited from sharing information without explicit written authorization.

Together, these documents ensure that the people you trust are empowered to act on your behalf without court involvement, without delay, and without ambiguity. Our incapacity planning ensures that decision-making authority rests with the people you choose, documented in a way that will actually work when it needs to.

Planning for Business Owners and Real Estate Investors

For business owners and real estate investors, estate planning often extends beyond wills and trusts. Ownership structures, succession planning, liability concerns, and tax considerations all influence how assets should be transferred to the next generation.

For many business owners, a closely held business represents one of the most significant assets in their estate. Successfully transitioning that asset often requires more than a will or trust. Buy-sell agreements, operating agreements, shareholder arrangements, and succession plans should be coordinated with an overall estate plan to ensure ownership transfers occur as intended and without unnecessary disruption.

Similar considerations apply to real estate holdings. Whether assets are owned individually, jointly, or through business entities, title arrangements, lease structures, and ownership agreements can significantly affect how property is transferred and managed across generations. Addressing these issues proactively often creates greater flexibility and avoids complications when a transfer ultimately occurs.

Because CMP Law maintains integrated business, real estate, and commercial finance practices alongside its estate planning group, clients benefit from a coordinated approach to planning. Estate plans can be developed with direct consideration of shareholder agreements, operating agreements, title structures, and financing arrangements, helping ensure that important documents work together to support a client’s overall objectives.

Estate Tax Planning for Michigan Families

Michigan does not impose a state estate tax, inheritance tax, or gift tax. Nevertheless, federal transfer tax laws remain an important consideration for many individuals and families. Careful planning can make a substantial difference in what is ultimately passed to the next generation.

The federal estate and gift tax applies to the cumulative transfer of wealth (made during life and at death) exceeding the applicable exemption amount, which is $15 million per individual in 2026, adjusted annually for inflation. This means the exemption is not limited to assets passing at death; it is a unified lifetime exemption that is reduced dollar-for-dollar by taxable gifts made during life. For example, an individual who makes $3 million in taxable gifts during their lifetime would have $12 million of exemption remaining to shelter assets at death. Assets ultimately transferred in excess of the exemption, whether through lifetime gifting or at death, are generally subject to federal tax at a rate of 40%. While many families will never face a federal transfer tax liability, business owners, real estate investors, and individuals with appreciating assets should remain mindful of how future growth and lifetime transfers may affect their estate planning objectives.

Married couples have an important additional planning opportunity through portability. When the first spouse dies, any unused portion of the deceased spouse’s federal estate and gift tax exemption may be transferred to the surviving spouse, effectively increasing the amount a married couple can pass free of federal transfer tax, across both lifetime gifts and transfers at death, to approximately $30 million in 2026. Portability, however, is not automatic. It generally must be elected on a timely filed federal estate tax return, even when no estate tax is due. Families who fail to make the election may permanently lose the deceased spouse’s unused exemption amount.

Separately from the unified exemption, annual gifts up to $19,000 per recipient in 2026 are excluded from the gift tax entirely and do not reduce an individual’s lifetime exemption. This annual exclusion is available to each donor for each recipient, meaning a married couple with three adult children could transfer up to $114,000 per year to their children (and more if grandchildren or other family members are included) without any impact on their remaining exemption. For families looking to reduce the size of a taxable estate over time, systematic annual gifting is often one of the simplest and most effective tools available.

Lifetime Gifting Strategies

Estate planning does not always require waiting until death to transfer wealth. For many families, lifetime gifting can be an effective way to support children, grandchildren, and charitable causes while also reducing future transfer tax exposure.

One of the most commonly used tools is the annual gift tax exclusion. Each year, individuals may transfer up to the annual exclusion amount to any number of recipients without gift tax consequences and without reducing their lifetime exemption. Over time, a consistent gifting program can transfer substantial wealth to future generations while removing future appreciation from the donor’s taxable estate.

For clients seeking more advanced planning opportunities, we advise on a variety of sophisticated lifetime transfer strategies, including:

• Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLATs): irrevocable trusts that remove assets from the taxable estate while preserving indirect access for a spouse during their lifetime.
• Charitable Remainder Unitrusts (CRUTs) and Charitable Lead Annuity Trusts (CLATs): charitable planning vehicles that can combine philanthropic goals with tax-efficient wealth transfer.
• Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts (IDGTs): planning structures that allow future appreciation to pass to beneficiaries outside the taxable estate while the grantor continues to pay the income tax attributable to trust earnings.
• Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs): trusts designed to keep life insurance proceeds outside the insured’s taxable estate while providing liquidity and other planning benefits.

The appropriate strategy depends on a client’s goals, asset composition, family dynamics, and long-term planning objectives. What works well for one family may be entirely inappropriate for another, making careful analysis an important part of the planning process.

Nearly 90 Years of Planning for What Matters Most

For nearly nine decades, Conlin, McKenney & Philbrick, P.C. has helped individuals and families throughout Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, and Southeast Michigan plan for the future with confidence. Since 1937, our attorneys have worked with clients from all walks of life, helping them protect loved ones, preserve family assets, and create thoughtful plans for future generations.

Our estate planning team brings together attorneys with diverse backgrounds and experience advising families with a wide range of planning needs. Whether a client is creating their first estate plan, preparing for retirement, planning for a family business, preserving a family cottage, providing for a loved one with special needs, or implementing sophisticated wealth transfer strategies, our approach remains the same: listen carefully, understand the client’s goals, and develop a plan tailored to their circumstances.

We prepare the foundational documents many families need, including wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, durable powers of attorney, and patient advocate designations, but effective estate planning begins long before the documents are drafted. We take the time to understand your family, your assets, and the values that guide your decisions. Every plan is intentional, personal, and designed to help achieve your long-term objectives.

From Estate Planning to Estate Administration

Estate planning does not end at drafting.

When a loved one dies, someone must step into the role of personal representative or trustee to gather assets, notify creditors, file tax returns, manage distributions, and navigate the procedural requirements of Michigan law. For many families, that process is unfamiliar territory arrived at during one of the most difficult periods of their lives. We guide personal representatives and trustees through every stage of probate and trust administration.

While most estate plans are implemented without controversy, disputes occasionally arise regarding the validity of documents, fiduciary conduct, or the administration of an estate or trust. In those situations, CMP Law’s litigation attorneys work closely with the firm’s estate planning team to provide efficient and informed representation.