USA – NORTH CAROLINA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Kelly Rains Jesson, Jesson & Rains, PLLC
Estate Planning in a Shifting North Carolina Landscape: Trends, Technology and the Case for Relationship-Centred Practice Introduction The estate planning landscape in North Carolina is undergoing a meaningful evolution. Modern technol - ogy at the state court level, changes in federal tax laws, a landmark Supreme Court decision affecting business succession planning, and the increasing number of new residents who call this great state home are collectively reshaping the priorities of thoughtful estate planning. At the same time, the commoditisation of legal docu - ments through technology and AI has fundamentally shifted client expectations. Sophisticated clients today understand that documents can be produced by rapidly advancing technology, so in order for them to invest in legal counsel, they must receive thoughtful opinions, proactive consultation and ongoing relation - ships from their human lawyer. For practitioners, these developments underscore a fundamental truth: technically proficient document drafting, while necessary, is no longer sufficient. The legal and market environments now reward firms that invest in ongoing client relationships and have deep familiarity with clients’ personal, business and finan - cial circumstances. This article examines the trends driving that shift and explains how our firm has struc - tured its practice to respond accordingly. The new priority is probate avoidance, and that requires an ongoing relationship The erosion of probate privacy in North Carolina One of the most significant recent developments for North Carolina estate planning practitioners is the state’s transition to an online probate court system. While probate court records were never “private”, a person wanting to view a probate court file before 2025 would have to physically go down to the county courthouse, pull the file, and pay a fee to make physi - cal copies on the county’s copy machine in the file room. Now, North Carolina probate files are publicly accessible to anyone with internet access; wills admit - ted to probate, inventories of estate assets, including values, and the identities of beneficiaries, including whether they are over the age of 18, are now available for viewing via a simple search query. The only sensi -
tive information that is redacted are dates of birth, social security numbers and bank account numbers. Not even addresses are safe. While this firm has not yet seen any instances of fraud, it is just a matter of time. Whenever we record a deed for a client, form a business for a client or submit a trade mark application (all of which are online and pub - licly available for viewing), our clients receive spam mail from companies pretending to be the government, claiming that they need to pay a fee in order to get an official record (as an example). It is just a matter of time before some bad actor realises that it can scan the court filings and figure out what deceased person left a grieving surviving spouse with a large life insurance policy and start spamming them with mail or, worse, calling them or preying on their minor children. This development has material implications for clients who previously relied on wills as their primary testa - mentary instrument. That might have accomplished that client’s goals in the past, but if the client now has a goal of privacy (especially after being educated about the change in state court process), the will by itself will not do the trick. However, a properly drafted and funded revocable trust will achieve the client’s privacy goal. The trust instrument itself is not filed with the court, and any assets titled in the name of the trust are not listed on any court inventory. Therefore, if the trust is fully funded, there may be no need for court- supervised probate at all. A changed federal tax environment In the recent past, sophisticated estate planning was organised around minimising federal estate tax expo - sure. It was not that long ago that the federal estate tax exemption was USD5.6 million (2017). Think about how many clients would be affected by this if the law were still in place, even adjusted for inflation. Now, with the federal estate tax exemption “permanently” at USD15 million per individual (since there is no sunset provision in the new law), plus adjustments for inflation, most clients no longer face federal estate tax exposure. This shift has reoriented the goals of estate planning for many clients, including business owners and high net worth individuals who once required complex tax-driven structures. Where the primary concern
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