Estate planning, coordinated
Your attorney drafts the plan. We make the money follow it.
A will governs only what passes through probate; retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable-on-death registrations go to whoever is named on the form, whatever the will says. We keep the beneficiary forms, account titles, and trust funding lined up with the documents your attorney drafted, and we bring the plan’s numbers to that table, so the paperwork and the money agree.
The situation
The documents were signed. The accounts kept moving.
Most households we meet have an estate plan of some age. A will, perhaps a revocable trust, powers of attorney, and a folder that has not been opened since. In the years since, a 401(k) was rolled to an IRA, a brokerage account was opened, a child married, a parent died, and a house was bought. Each of those moments changed who receives what, and none of them updated the folder.
The attorney who drafted the plan does not see your accounts. The CPA who files your return does not read your trust. Each is good at their part, and the seam between them is where beneficiary forms go stale, trusts stay unfunded, and a pre-tax IRA lands on the one heir least able to absorb the tax.
That seam is our work. We do not draft documents or give legal advice; your attorney does that. We read the plan against the balance sheet, keep the two in agreement, and hold the whole picture as the estate section of your financial plan, reviewed at least once a year and whenever life changes.
Why it’s complex
Five places an estate plan and the money disagree
The form outranks the will
Retirement plans, life insurance, and payable-on-death accounts pay the person named on the form. The Supreme Court held in 2009 that a plan must pay the named beneficiary even when a divorce decree said otherwise. Forms go stale at four moments: a marriage, a divorce, a death, a rollover.
Read the guideNot every asset gets the step-up
Appreciated stock, a home, and a rental generally take a new basis at death, so a lifetime of gain is never taxed. Traditional IRAs and 401(k)s do not; every dollar remains ordinary income to the heir. Which asset goes to which person is a tax decision as much as a family one.
Read the guideThe ten-year clock on inherited IRAs
Most adult children must empty an inherited IRA by the end of the tenth year, often with annual withdrawals along the way, and usually in their own peak earning years. A Roth conversion or a charitable beneficiary during your lifetime can change what that decade costs them.
Read the guideAn unfunded trust is a plan on paper
A revocable trust controls only what has been retitled into it or directed to it at death. Accounts left in individual names, a deed never re-recorded, or a beneficiary form pointing elsewhere all pass outside the trust, and the probate the trust was meant to avoid happens anyway.
The family has not heard the plan
In one twenty-year study of 3,250 families, about seven in ten wealth transfers failed, and the causes were trust, communication, and preparation rather than documents. Heirs who know a plan exists, and why it is shaped as it is, are the part no instrument can supply.
Read the guideSources: IRC §2010(c)(3) as amended by P.L. 119-21 §70106 and IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 §§3.14, 3.42; IRC §6075(a) and §2010(c)(5)(A); Texas S.B. 752 (2015) and Tex. Const. art. VIII §26 (Proposition 8, Nov. 2025); Texas Estates Code ch. 114; IRC §1014(b)(6).
Our approach
Read the plan against the balance sheet, then keep them in agreement
Estate coordination is one quadrant of the ongoing plan every investment-management client receives, alongside cash flow, risk, and tax. It follows a fixed order: inventory first, numbers before the attorney meeting, funding after signing, and a standing review from then on.
Inventory every form, title, and deed
We gather the beneficiary designation on each retirement account and policy, the registration on each taxable account, the deed on each property, and the documents themselves. Then we map what actually passes to whom, by form, by title, or by will, and mark every place that map disagrees with what you intend.
Bring the numbers to the drafting table
Your attorney decides structure; the decision is better with the balance sheet in view. We provide the estate by category (pre-tax, Roth, taxable, real estate, business interests, insurance), its likely size at various ages, and the tax character of each piece, so the plan is drafted around what the estate will be, not what it was.
Fund, retitle, and confirm
Signing is the midpoint. We handle the custodian paperwork to retitle accounts into a trust or name it as beneficiary, coordinate a transfer-on-death deed with counsel where it fits, update every beneficiary form to match, and confirm each change in writing so the plan exists in the accounts, not only in the binder.
Keep it current
The estate quadrant comes up on a schedule: a beneficiary review at least annually, a check after any marriage, birth, death, divorce, move, or rollover, and a look at exemption law when it changes. Lifetime gifts, Roth conversions, and charitable beneficiaries are sized here, where they touch the tax plan.
Hold the family meeting
Once the plan is settled, we help you decide what to share with heirs and how. Some families walk through the whole structure; others explain the reasoning and the people to call. Either way, the successor trustee, the executor, and the adult children should not be learning the plan for the first time at the worst possible moment.
The work
What you’ll work through with us
- A beneficiary and titling audit across every account, policy, and deed, read against the estate documents
- A balance sheet sorted by how each asset passes and how it is taxed when it does
- Trust funding and account retitling after signing, with written confirmation from each custodian
- An asset-by-asset plan for what to spend, give, and leave, built around the step-up and the ten-year rule
- Lifetime gifting and charitable structure: annual-exclusion gifts, 529 contributions, qualified charitable distributions, and donor-advised funds, sized against the plan
- Liquidity for the estate, so taxes, debts, and equalization among heirs are paid without a forced sale
- At a death in the family: date-of-death values, the nine-month estate-tax return and portability calendar with your attorney, and a withdrawal schedule for each inherited account
- One point of coordination among your attorney, your CPA, and the custodian
Estate coordination at the firm is led by Theo Halbardier, CFP®, CIMA®, CAIA®, the firm’s founder. Estate planning is one of the eight domains of the CFP® curriculum, which is the training for reading a trust against a balance sheet. We are fee-only: no commissions, no product sales. About Theo
Questions
Common questions about estate planning coordination
Do you draft wills, trusts, or powers of attorney?
No. We do not provide legal or tax advice, and we do not draft documents. Your estate attorney drafts and your CPA files; we coordinate. That means reading the plan against your accounts, supplying the numbers before the drafting meeting, handling the retitling and beneficiary updates afterward, and keeping the two in agreement as life changes. If you do not yet have an attorney, we can suggest what to look for; you are never obliged to use anyone we mention.
What is the federal estate tax exemption in 2026?
$15,000,000 per person for 2026, or $30,000,000 for a married couple whose estate elects portability, under IRC §2010(c)(3) as amended by P.L. 119-21. The amount is indexed for inflation after 2026 and no longer carries a scheduled sunset. Estates above the exemption face a top federal rate of 40%. For most households the estate-tax question is about the survivor’s portability election and the income tax heirs will pay on inherited retirement accounts, rather than the estate tax itself.
Does Texas have an estate or inheritance tax?
No. The Texas inheritance tax was repealed effective September 1, 2015 (S.B. 752), and in November 2025 voters added Article VIII, Section 26 to the state constitution, which bars the Legislature from imposing an estate, inheritance, or gift tax. Property you own in another state may still be subject to that state’s rules, which is one reason the inventory covers deeds, not only accounts.
Do I need a trust in Texas?
Often the answer turns on something other than probate. Texas allows independent administration, which keeps probate simpler than in many states, so a revocable trust earns its place for other reasons: incapacity planning, a blended family, minor or special-needs heirs, privacy, or property in another state. Whether you need one is your attorney’s call. Our part is to bring the balance sheet to that conversation and, if a trust is created, to make sure it is funded.
What is a transfer-on-death deed?
A Texas transfer-on-death deed (Estates Code Chapter 114) names who receives real property at your death, passes it outside probate, and can be revoked while you are living. It must be recorded in the county deed records before death to be effective, and it has no effect on your ownership, homestead rights, or property-tax exemptions during your life. It should agree with the will and any trust, which is where coordination comes in.
Which accounts should go to which heirs?
The general pattern: appreciated taxable assets and real estate receive a new basis at death, so they suit individual heirs; pre-tax IRAs and 401(k)s carry income tax and a ten-year window for most adult children, so they suit charity or heirs in lower brackets; Roth accounts are tax-free to the heir and also fall under the ten-year rule. In Texas, both halves of community property receive a new basis at the first spouse’s death. The right split is decided with your attorney and CPA.
How are you paid?
We are a fee-only firm: our only compensation is a simple advisory fee based on the assets we manage for you. No commissions, no product sales, no hidden or layered fees. This structure keeps our interests aligned with yours. In other words, we do better when you do better. Ongoing estate coordination is included in that fee; we also offer standalone planning engagements for households that want a one-time review.
Reviewed by Theo Halbardier, CFP® · Updated September 2026 · Figures current for 2026
Bring the plan you have.
The first conversation is 30 minutes. Bring the documents you have, or none at all; we start with the accounts.
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