ESTATE PROTECTION / MANAGEMENT AND INHERITANCE MATTERS
The amassing of a personal estate is the result of a lifetime of commitment, work and sacrifice: it represents a hoped-for guarantee of peace of mind, both for the years of old age and for the future of any children. The protection of the estate, once consolidated, requires the quality legal advice for both goals: the protection of the client’s personal future, as well as the protection of children or entities that are to benefit under the inheritance. Transactions involving acquisition, disposal, management, and transfer to the recipients of the bequest/legacy require taking many precautions to preserve the estate’s financial and legal security.
Wealth management
Asset management often deals with a number of conditions and events that involve – or may involve – several owners and different possible management solutions. The need for legal advice may therefore relate to how ownership is shared, how shares are allocated, potential organizational structures, and the allocation of roles and responsibilities relating thereto. The firm is, of course, also prepared to assist a single owner, or multiple co-owners, if disputes have already publicly arisen and litigation is required.
In addition to efforts aimed at guaranteeing peaceful relationships between owners, asset management also involves the careful use of a whole array or legal instruments to properly administer them. Firstly, of course, it is necessary to draft agreements governing the awarding of tenders, or for the granting of leases, and in general for all types of property management.
Sometimes, the joint management of property is no longer possible due to disputes arising between the co-owners or because the needs or demands of one or all of them have changed. At that point, the appropriate legal documentation must be prepared to finalize the dissolution of the joint assets holding arrangements, the proper division of goods so as to award exclusive ownership of defined assets to each of the partners.
In addition, for this area of its practice, the Law Firm of Cascio & Ferraro is involved in both providing advice, in preparation and drafting of legal documents, as well as for in defending parties’ rights in both litigation and other out-of-court dispute resolution efforts.
Inheritance
The legal instruments ensuring the proper passage of succession rights are the second area in which legal advice plays a decisive role in order to eliminate or limit as much as possible potential disputes between the beneficiaries under a will. Firstly, the lawyer’s expert contribution focuses on the drafting of the will, with the goal of accurately and completely surveying and describing the assets, thus ensuring that the will of the testator is carried out via valid acts of disposition, scrupulously avoiding possible risks permitting challenges to the will. Conversely, efforts to fully identify and detail the estate’s assets is the first step in defending the Client from the attacks of those intending to claim for themselves estate assets, in whole or in part.
Even in this case, the handling of will-related bureaucracy is only the least significant part of the provision of legal advice in this field. The goal is to defend the client’s rights against any adverse claims, via the examination of documents, the mapping of assets, and the development of a well-planned defense strategy.
In other cases, it is also possible that those who have legitimate expectations of inheritance rights, either because the law reserves a mandatory share for them or because they are specific beneficiaries under a will, find themselves having to deal with subsequent wills that have excluded them in whole or in part. In this case, it will be necessary to verify the facts on a case-by-case basis, using the necessary handwriting and other experts, in order to potentially challenge these instruments’ validity is before a judge, due either to the lack of a valid signature, because they were signed by a person no longer of legally-sound mind, or because they are the result of undue or unconscionable pressure to the detriment of the testator.
However, that is not all, as sometimes the testator, while living, in order to favor one heir over another, has already improperly or fraudulently transferred his assets to the detriment of other legitimate heirs, perhaps resorting to sham transactions or inter vivos donations in order to reduce the amount of future inheritance.
In such cases, the Law Firm of Cascio & Ferraro, by investigating the testator’s past, is able to offer the “neglected” heir the means of protection to have his or her rights recognized.
With the firm’s help, all that remains for the client to do is to not worry, and to begin to think about how to manage the assets to be obtained as part of the inheritance.
For informations or consulancy
Via Lamarmora 40 • 20122 Milano
tel +39 02.55194437 • fax +39 02.55194446