Estate Planning Attorney
in Long Island

Long Island is not one jurisdiction. It is two counties — Nassau and Suffolk — with two separate Surrogate's Courts, two sets of calendaring practices, and two very different property markets. An estate is heard in the county where the decedent lived, and a family that moved from Garden City to Riverhead late in life has changed courts without knowing it.

That is the first thing to establish, because everything downstream depends on it. This guide covers both courts, the property patterns that define Long Island estates, the New York estate tax line that suburban homeowners cross more often than city ones, and the second-home problem that runs from the North Shore to the East End.

Nassau County Surrogate's Court — 262 Old Country Road, Mineola, NY 11501. All probate petitions, administration proceedings, and related filings for decedents who resided in Nassau County.

Suffolk County Surrogate's Court — 320 Center Drive, Riverhead, NY 11901. The same for decedents who resided in Suffolk County.

Residence at the time of death decides which court hears the matter — not the location of the property, and not where the executor lives. A Nassau resident who owned a house in Southampton is a Nassau matter; a Suffolk resident who owned a co-op in Queens is a Suffolk matter.

The distinction is not merely administrative. Geography alone shapes an estate's cost: Riverhead is a considerable drive from western Suffolk, and a proceeding that requires several appearances is priced accordingly. It is one reason we keep offices at both ends of the Island.

New York taxes estates above its own exemption — approximately $7.16 million in 2026, separate from the federal exemption. The mechanism families run into is the cliff: an estate exceeding 105% of the exemption is taxed in full, not merely on the amount above the line.

Long Island reaches that threshold more readily than most of the city, and for an ordinary reason. A primary residence on the North Shore or the South Shore, a second property, retirement accounts accumulated over a full career, and a life insurance policy owned outright add up on today's values. Life insurance is the piece most often overlooked — a policy the decedent owned is included in the taxable estate even though the money passes directly to a beneficiary.

The tools are well established: credit shelter trusts that preserve both spouses' exemptions instead of wasting one, irrevocable life insurance trusts that move a policy out of the taxable estate, and lifetime gifting done with attention to New York's three-year lookback on gifts made before death. Each has to be in place beforehand; after a death the options narrow to disclaimers and elections.

A large share of Long Island estates include more than one property, and that is where avoidable expense accumulates.

A house in another state — Florida, the Carolinas, New Jersey — is generally not covered by a New York probate. It normally requires an ancillary proceeding in that state, with its own filings, its own timetable, and its own counsel. A properly funded revocable trust usually avoids the second proceeding entirely, which is the strongest single argument for a trust in a Long Island plan.

An East End property — Southampton, East Hampton, Sag Harbor, Montauk, the North Fork — raises valuation questions that a suburban house does not: seasonal rental income, land value that dominates improvement value, and, where the property has been in a family for decades, a basis so low that a sale after death is a very different transaction from a sale before it.

Domicile deserves its own mention. Families who winter in Florida often believe they have changed residence for tax purposes. New York examines domicile closely, and half-completed moves — a Florida address with a New York home, licence, and doctors — produce residency audits that fall on the estate. If the intent is to change domicile, it should be done completely and documented.

A straightforward estate in either county completes probate in roughly 9 to 14 months. Will contests, out-of-state property, or a closely held business commonly extend that to two or three years.

Where there is no will, the proceeding is administration, statute sets the priority to serve, and a bond is frequently required — a cost a will normally waives.

Long Island holds a dense population of closely held businesses — contractors, medical and dental practices, marine and landscaping firms, family retail. A business interest is the hardest asset in an estate: it must be valued, it may not be salable quickly, and it often depends on the person who died.

What prevents a forced sale is agreement written in advance: a buy-sell agreement funded with life insurance, a succession plan naming who runs the business on day one, and a valuation method fixed before there is a dispute about it. Without those, the estate can be forced to liquidate at a discount simply to pay the tax on a value it never received in cash.

Long-term care costs on Long Island are among the highest in the state, and Medicaid — the program that pays for nursing home care — reviews asset transfers made before an application for institutional coverage. Timing decides whether a transfer protects the family home or creates a penalty period during which no coverage is available.

Medicaid asset protection trusts are the usual instrument, and they must be established well before care is needed. The caregiver child and sibling exceptions apply here as elsewhere, and community-based long-term care has its own rules and its own timetable, distinct from institutional coverage. Because the family home is usually the asset at stake, this planning is worth doing early rather than at the point of crisis.

We work with families across both counties.