A complete New York estate plan is built on four coordinated documents: a Last Will and Testament, one or more trusts, a durable Power of Attorney, and a Health Care Proxy. Together, these instruments decide who inherits your property, who manages your affairs if you become incapacitated, who makes your medical decisions, and how much of your estate is lost
For deaths occurring on or after January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026, New York’s basic exclusion amount is $7,350,000 — meaning a New York estate valued at or below that figure passes free of New York estate tax. But here is the part that separates a competent plan from a costly mistake: New York has a “cliff.” Once a
Medicaid planning and your New York estate intersect at one decisive question: will the assets you spent a lifetime building be protected from long-term-care costs, or will they be spent down before Medicaid pays a dollar? For most New Yorkers, the answer turns on the five-year look-back — the period during which New York reviews transfers and gifts before approving
To include digital assets in your New York estate plan correctly, you must do three things together: inventory every digital asset you own, grant your fiduciaries explicit legal authority to access them, and weave that authority through each of your core documents — your will, your trust(s), your durable power of attorney, and your health care proxy. Digital assets are
To avoid probate in New York, you must move your assets out of your individual name before death — most reliably by funding a revocable living trust (governed by EPTL Article 7), and by layering in beneficiary designations, payable-on-death accounts, and properly titled joint property. Probate is the Surrogate’s Court process of validating your Last Will and Testament and transferring
For most New Yorkers, the honest answer is: you likely need both — but rarely a trust instead of a will, and never a will treated as your entire plan. A will alone directs who inherits your property, but it must pass through Surrogate’s Court probate to take effect, and it does nothing while you are alive but incapacitated. A