Martin Dever heads the firm’s Wills, Trusts & Estates Department. He has extensive experience in all aspects of estate planning, including insurance trusts, split dollar arrangements, survivorship insurance, generation skipping transfer tax planning, charitable split interest trusts, transfers to minors, grantor retained interest trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, private foundations, qualified domestic trusts, the minimum distribution rules under 401(a)(9) and revocable trusts.
Martin has also advised clients with respect to prenuptial agreements, equitable distribution, rights of election and spousal rights under the Retirement Equity Act of 1984, health care proxies and living wills, grantor trust rules, income in respect of a decedent, transfers to accelerate Medicaid eligibility, domicile and consequences thereof, below market interest loans and consequences under Section 7872 of the Internal Revenue Code, S corporations and qualified subchapter S trusts, conservatorships and durable powers of attorney.
During his career, Martin has had extensive responsibility for numerous estates, and has participated in all aspects of estate administration, including probate and other proceedings before the Surrogate’s Court, the preparation of U.S. and New York estate tax returns, Connecticut Succession Tax returns and New Jersey Inheritance Tax returns and the audits of those returns. He has also engaged in income tax planning, considered use of disclaimers, selected assets to fund trusts and considered income tax consequences thereof, considered how to maximize the use of administration expenses as deductions, computed 691(c) deduction, and previously taxed property credit.
Martin has also participated in litigation involving will contests, the exercise by the surviving spouse of the right to elect against the decedent’s will, an estate tax refund claim, and a claim by an individual that he was a remainderman of a trust by virtue of his being equitably adopted.
Martin is a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association and the Bergen County Bar Association. He has received an AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell.