Estate Planning Attorney
in Staten Island

Staten Island is the borough where most families own the house they live in. That single difference reshapes estate planning here: where a Manhattan estate is often accounts and a co-op, and a Bronx estate is often cooperative shares, a Staten Island estate is usually a detached or semi-attached home held in one or two names, plus a pension, plus whatever was set aside around them.

It is also the borough with the largest share of households working for the City — police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, transit employees. Their retirement benefits pass by beneficiary designation, not by will, and that is the most common reason a Staten Island estate does not go where the family expected.

This guide covers the Richmond County Surrogate's Court, how a house and a pension actually transfer, where New York's estate tax catches homeowners, and what flood-zone property adds to the picture.

Staten Island estates are heard by the Richmond County Surrogate's Court at 18 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301, in St. George. Jurisdiction follows the decedent's county of residence at death — not the location of the property and not where the children live.

The court handles probate of wills, administration where there is no will, guardianships, accountings, and disputes among beneficiaries. Richmond County is the smallest of the five surrogate's courts by volume, which in practice means a complete petition tends to move predictably — and an incomplete one still waits.

Our Staten Island office is at 1510 Hylan Boulevard, by appointment.

This is the issue we correct most often on Staten Island, and it is entirely avoidable.

City pensions, deferred compensation, 457 and 401(k) plans, IRAs, and life insurance all pass by beneficiary designation. The designation on file with the pension system controls, and a will cannot override it. A form completed at hiring in 1994 naming a parent or a former spouse still governs thirty years later, no matter what the will says.

Two further points that matter to uniformed families in particular. Line-of-duty death benefits and accidental death benefits follow their own statutory rules and designations. And where a designation names a minor child, the money cannot simply be paid to a child — a guardianship proceeding is required unless a trust is named to receive it, which is one of the strongest arguments for having one.

The remedy is not complicated: request current beneficiary statements from every plan, compare them against the will, and correct the mismatches. It is a two-week task that regularly prevents a two-year dispute.

How a Staten Island home is titled decides whether it goes through probate at all.

Tenancy by the entirety — the default for married couples in New York — means the survivor takes the whole property automatically, without probate. Joint tenancy with right of survivorship does the same for non-spouses. Tenancy in common, common where a house was left to several children, does not: each share passes through that owner's own estate.

That last case produces the borough's most common dispute. Three siblings inheriting equal shares own one indivisible house together. Any one of them may bring a partition action, and a court-ordered sale generally brings less than a negotiated one. Where one sibling lives in the house and the others do not, the disagreement is nearly guaranteed unless the plan says in advance who occupies, who is bought out, at what price, and by when.

A revocable trust holding the house solves the transfer problem — the successor trustee has authority immediately, without waiting for letters — but only if the deed is actually transferred into it. An unfunded trust is the single most common planning failure we see.

Along the East Shore and the South Shore, a meaningful number of homes were damaged, elevated, or rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy, and some were bought out. This affects an estate in ways that are easy to miss: the property's basis and insured value may differ sharply from its assessment; flood insurance obligations continue and must be maintained by the estate; and where a home was raised or reconstructed with grant money, conditions may attach that a new owner inherits.

The practical instruction is narrow but important — an executor should confirm that flood and homeowner coverage remains in force from the day of death, because a lapse during a months-long probate is uninsured exposure on the family's largest asset.

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

Staten Island families cross the line less often than Manhattan families, but a house on the South Shore, a second property at the Jersey Shore or in Florida, a pension, and a life insurance policy owned outright add up faster than people expect. Life insurance is the piece most often forgotten — a policy the decedent owned counts in the taxable estate even though the proceeds go directly to a beneficiary. Credit shelter trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, and lifetime gifting with attention to the three-year lookback are the standard tools, and all of them work only in advance.

A second property in another state adds a further wrinkle: real estate outside New York is generally not covered by a New York probate, and can require an ancillary proceeding in that state. A trust usually avoids it.

A straightforward Staten Island estate 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 often required — an expense a will normally waives.

For a family whose principal asset is the house, long-term care is the larger risk. Medicaid pays for nursing home care but reviews asset transfers made before an application for institutional coverage, and timing decides whether a transfer protects the home or creates a penalty period.

Medicaid asset protection trusts are the usual instrument. The caregiver child exception — where an adult child lived in the home and provided care that delayed a nursing home admission by at least two years — and the sibling exception both come up on Staten Island, where adult children more often remain in the family home. Both depend on records created at the time rather than assembled afterward.

We work with clients throughout Richmond County.