Estate Planning

At Felix & Killen, our families come first, and there is no area of law that embodies that principal better than estate planning. Choosing where and how your assets will be transferred to your loved ones is a vitally important decision, worthy of thoughtful consideration and sound legal counsel. While not every client requires a sophisticated estate plan to meet complicated tax and succession goals, we take our duty to help clients achieve all of their testamentary wishes very seriously, and strive to give our clients the highest quality of service to ensure their final wishes are well planned, and accurately executed.

Through consultation with our estate planning attorneys, we help clients create complete estate plans, specifically tailored to each client’s needs and unique family dynamics. We help clients consider and balance the many interests and financial goals involved in creating a successful succession plan, implementing the client’s distribution wishes while managing tax planning goals, and identifying contingent beneficiaries.

The passing of a loved one can be a stressful time for surviving spouses and children. Through skillful use of wills, trusts, powers of attorney, advance directives and proper coordination of life insurance and retirement benefits, we help clients provide detailed estate plans for their loved ones, to allow an orderly and clear transition after death. Our attorneys assist families not only with advance planning, but also with post-death administration of wills and trusts to help survivors navigate and carry out the wishes in your testamentary documents during what is often a confusing and difficult time.

The estate planning attorneys at Felix & Killen help individuals, families and their representatives across Santa Barbara, Carpinteria and Ventura with a wide variety of estate planning and trust matters, including:

  • Preparing basic estate planning documents for individuals and couples, including wills, revocable trusts, durable powers of attorney, and advance health care directives, and advising on basic but effective estate and gift tax planning techniques.
  • Preparing other trust structures to address specialized goals and needs, including incentives to beneficiaries and heirs, protecting assets from creditors, and providing specialized management tools for trustees.
  • Assisting clients to help meet their charitable goals, including non-profit organizations and private foundations.
  • Business succession planning
  • Probate and trust administration