-
- Carolina Family Estate Planning
-
51 Kilmayne Dr Ste 200
Cary, NC 27511 - Phone: 919-443-3035
- Fax: 919-324-6987
- Office Hours:
- Directions
Carolina Family Estate Planning is an estate planning and elder law firm with its office in Cary, North Carolina, at 51 Kilmayne Dr., Suite 200. We help Cary families put wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and long-term care plans in place, and we help Wake County families settle an estate after someone dies. Reach us at 919-443-3035 or schedule a Needs Assessment Call online.
Our Cary Office
We are at 51 Kilmayne Dr., Suite 200, Cary, NC 27511. Suite 200 sits on the second floor with elevator access from the lobby. Parking is on site and free, so no meter and no garage.
To find us, enter the RE/MAX building parking lot behind the CVS on Kildaire Farm Road. Free parking, including handicapped-accessible parking, is available right outside the building. If you need assistance upon your arrival, please call us, and a member of our team will be happy to come out and assist you.
This is our only office. Your meetings happen here, your documents are drafted here, and your signing appointment happens here, with our team walking you through every page.
If getting here is hard, say so. We meet plenty of clients by video and can handle nearly everything but the signing without anyone leaving the house.
What We Help Cary Families Do
We do estate planning, elder law, and asset protection, and we can walk you through what a full estate plan includes. We do not handle divorce, personal injury, or real estate closings, and we will say so plainly when something falls outside our work.
| What you need | What we do | What you end up with |
|---|---|---|
| A first plan for your family | Wills or revocable living trusts, powers of attorney, Health Care Powers of Attorney, HIPAA authorizations | A full set of documents plus a funding roadmap so the plan works |
| Protection for an inheritance | Trust provisions that keep an inheritance out of a child's divorce or a creditor's reach | Money that stays in your family |
| A parent who may need care | Long-term care planning, Medicaid planning, VA Aid and Attendance | A written plan for paying for care before a crisis forces a bad decision |
| A memory diagnosis in the family | Alzheimer's protection planning and dementia guidance in the documents | Decision-making authority in place while it can still be granted |
| Someone just died | Probate and estate administration in Wake County and statewide | The estate opened, administered, and closed, with filings on time |
| A trust that needs administering | Trust administration and successor trustee support | A trustee who knows what to do and a paper trail that holds up |
| A business you own | Business succession planning | A written answer to what happens if you cannot run it |
| Young children at home | Guardian nominations and standby guardianship provisions | The right people named, in writing, before anyone needs them |
Estate planning with us is a flat fee. You will know the price before you hire us, and it will not move because a question took longer than expected. Estate and trust administration is billed hourly, and we assign each task to the lowest-rate team member qualified to do it.
How Estate Matters Actually Work in Wake County
North Carolina handles estates county by county, and almost nothing about that process happens in Cary.
When a Cary resident dies, their estate is opened with the Wake County Clerk of Superior Court, Estates Division, which sits in downtown Raleigh. In North Carolina the Clerk of Superior Court acts as the judge of probate. That office appoints the executor, issues the letters that let the executor act, and reviews the inventory and accountings that follow. There is no estates counter in Cary. Your family will be going to Raleigh, or we will go for them. You can read more about how probate works in North Carolina.
Deeds are a separate office. If you put your Cary home into a revocable living trust, a new deed has to be prepared and recorded with the Wake County Register of Deeds. This is where do-it-yourself trusts fall apart. People sign a beautiful trust, never record the deed, and the house goes through probate anyway.
| What you are doing | Which office | Where it is | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening an estate after a death | Clerk of Superior Court, Estates Division | Wake County, in Raleigh | Nothing can be done in the estate’s name until the Clerk appoints the executor |
| Filing the inventory and annual accountings | Clerk of Superior Court, Estates Division | Wake County, in Raleigh | Missed deadlines are the most common reason an estate drags on |
| Recording a deed into your trust | Register of Deeds | Wake County | An unrecorded deed means the house is not in the trust, whatever the trust says |
| Filing a will for safekeeping while you are living | Clerk of Superior Court | County of residence | Optional in North Carolina, and often unnecessary if the original is stored properly |
Two more things come up constantly.
Wake County is one of the largest counties in the state and its Estates Division handles a heavy volume, so being organized before you file is worth real time. We prepare the packet rather than send a grieving family downtown to find out something is missing.
A small piece of Cary is not in Wake County at all. Cary’s southwestern edge extends into Chatham County, so a family living there files in a different courthouse in a different town. If you are not sure which county your address sits in, ask us before anything gets filed, or set up a call with us.
Cary Families We See, and What They Are Usually Worried About
Cary is full of people who moved here for a job and left their parents somewhere else. That single fact drives most of the conversations we have.
A couple in their fifties, both working in the Research Triangle, with a house that has appreciated far past what they paid and most of their savings in retirement accounts. They think they need a will. What they usually need is a plan for the retirement accounts, because those pass by beneficiary designation and a will does not touch them.
A daughter whose mother is out of state and starting to forget things. She wants to move her here, and she has no idea what care costs in Wake County or what happens to the house back home.
A husband whose wife was diagnosed at 68. He is not asking about Medicaid yet. He is asking whether she can still sign a power of attorney, and how long that window stays open.
None of those people need a form. They need someone to ask better questions than they know to ask.
Long-Term Care: Medicaid Is One Tool, Not the Whole Plan
Most families who call us about a parent’s care start with the same question, and it is the wrong one. They ask how to qualify for Medicaid. The real question underneath is where their parent is going to live, who is going to pay for it, and what will be left. That wider conversation is planning for long-term care costs.
Medicaid is one answer to part of that. It is a good answer for many families and we do this work every week, including applications and crisis planning. It is also the last stop rather than the first. Before it comes a longer list:
- Where care actually happens. In-home care, adult day programs, assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing carry different price tags and different rules. Which one a family is heading toward changes the plan, and it shapes the care options families weigh.
- Insurance already in the drawer. Plenty of families own a long-term care policy nobody has read in a decade, or a life policy with a rider that pays for care. Jackie Bedard is licensed in North Carolina for life and long-term care insurance, so this conversation happens with someone who can read the policy.
- Veterans benefits. A wartime veteran or a surviving spouse may qualify for VA Aid and Attendance, a separate program with separate rules from Medicaid. Jackie is a VA-accredited attorney for these claims.
- A dementia diagnosis, specifically. Alzheimer’s and related conditions change the sequence of everything, because legal capacity is a closing window. Jackie is a founding member of the National Alliance of Attorneys for Alzheimer’s Planning, and planning after a memory diagnosis is a core part of our practice.
- What the plan does to everyone else. A spouse still at home has income and asset needs of their own, and children who provide care have their own exposure.
When you are comparing firms, ask each one how far their long-term care conversation goes past the Medicaid application. That answer tells you more than any list of practice areas. If you would like to talk ours through, book a time to talk.
Why Families Choose Us
There are other estate planning firms in Cary, and some of them do good work. Here is what separates us, and how to check each one yourself.
We plan for the whole care question. Medicaid planning, long-term care planning, VA Aid and Attendance, and Alzheimer’s planning sit in one place inside our elder law practice in Cary, with the licensure and accreditation described above behind them. You can verify all three credentials before you call us.
We also settle estates, so we know what breaks. Handling probate and trust administration means we watch our own documents get used. Most people want to name two children as co-executors to be fair. We have administered enough estates to know co-executors usually slow everything down, and we say so before you sign.
Our documents are longer on purpose. We draft on WealthCounsel, software whose language has been reviewed and refined by leading estate planning attorneys nationally, and our documents carry backup provisions for situations that probably will not happen. We would rather your family have a provision and never need it than need one that is missing.
We do not stop when you sign. A large share of estate plans fail because assets were never moved into the trust. We give you a written funding roadmap, prepare deeds, run implementation workshops, and check in. Our Membership Program keeps that going with attorney office hours, plan updates, and ongoing education.
We keep the fit conversation separate from the planning conversation. The Needs Assessment Call is short and free, and its only job is to work out whether we are right for what you are dealing with. The planning meeting that follows is the long one, and it is real work rather than a sales appointment.
We are women-owned and women-led. Jackie Bedard founded the firm in 2009 and our leadership team is majority women. Our files are documented so more than one person here knows your matter, which is worth asking about wherever you go.
If you would rather see how we think before you talk with us, join our free workshop, 3 Secrets to Protect Your Legacy.
What Working With Us Looks Like
We use a process we call the Family Protection System. Five stages:
- A Needs Assessment Call. A short conversation about what you are dealing with and whether we are a fit. No charge, no pressure.
- A planning meeting. Your family, your assets, your worries, and what you want to happen. This is the long one, and it decides whether the plan is any good.
- Design, drafting, and signing. We build the plan, review it internally, and proofread every name, address, and account detail before you see it. Then you sign in our Cary conference room, with witnesses and a notary, and with someone explaining what each document does.
- Funding. The part most firms skip. We tell you which accounts and which property have to change, and we help you do it.
- Ongoing support. Life changes. So should the plan.
Communities We Serve From Cary
Our clients come mostly from Cary and the surrounding Triangle: Apex, Morrisville, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Garner, and Clayton. We also help adult children living out of state handle a parent’s plan or estate here. If you live outside Wake County, your estate is filed with your own county’s Clerk of Superior Court, and we will tell you upfront which courthouse that is.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have an actual office in Cary, or is this a virtual address?
We have a real office at 51 Kilmayne Dr., Suite 200, in Cary, and clients meet with us there every day. Suite 200 is on the second floor with elevator access, and parking is free and on site. We also meet by video when that is easier, though signing appointments happen in person.
Where is probate filed if my loved one lived in Cary?
Probate for a Cary resident is filed with the Wake County Clerk of Superior Court, Estates Division, in Raleigh. There is no estates office in Cary itself. If the address falls in the part of Cary that sits in Chatham County, the filing goes to that county’s Clerk instead, which is worth confirming before anything is filed.
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
It depends on what you own and what you want to avoid, and for a lot of Cary families a will alone leaves the house exposed to probate. A will directs who receives your property and it still goes through the Clerk’s office after you die. A revocable living trust can keep the house and other titled assets out of that process, but only if the deed and the account titles are actually changed. We walk through both options with you rather than selling one.
How is your long-term care planning different from a Medicaid application?
A Medicaid application answers one question, which is whether a person qualifies for that program right now. Long-term care planning is the wider conversation around it: which level of care a family is heading toward, what it costs here, whether existing insurance will pay, whether a veteran qualifies for Aid and Attendance, and how a dementia diagnosis changes the timing. We do both, and we start with the wider one whenever there is still time to.
What does it cost to work with you?
Estate planning with us is a flat fee, quoted before you engage us, so the price does not change because your situation took an extra conversation. Estate and trust administration is billed hourly, and we assign each task to the lowest-rate team member qualified to handle it. We go over fees openly at your first meeting.
Can you help if I live outside Cary?
Yes, we work with families throughout North Carolina, and Cary is a reasonable drive from most of the Triangle. For clients farther away, we handle the planning conversations by video and coordinate the signing appointment around one trip.
What should I bring to my first meeting?
Bring a rough list of what you own and how each item is titled, along with any estate planning documents you already have. Account statements are helpful but not required, and beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance matter more than most people expect. If you are dealing with a death, bring the death certificate, any correspondence from the Clerk’s office, and the original will if you have one.
Talk to Us
Call 919-443-3035 or schedule a Needs Assessment Call. If you would rather see how we think first, come to our free workshop, 3 Secrets to Protect Your Legacy.
Join the free 3 Secrets to Protect Your Legacy workshop
