Most New Yorkers walk into estate planning thinking the question is whether to have a will or a trust. The real question is what each one actually does for your specific situation, because the answer often turns on the value of your home, whether you own property in more than one state, and how much you want to keep out of public court records. At Roven Law Group, clients in Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs frequently start the conversation believing a will is enough, only to find that a revocable living trust would save their family time, money, and exposure to New York’s distinctive estate tax cliff. The opposite is also true. For plenty of families, a well-drafted will does the job at a fraction of the setup cost.
Here’s how the two tools compare in practice, and how to think about which one fits a Manhattan family.
What a Will Actually Does
A last will and testament directs how your assets pass at death, names a guardian for any minor children, and appoints an executor to administer your estate. It only takes effect when you die, and it has no operative force during your lifetime.
Wills in New York have to be probated through Surrogate’s Court in the county where the decedent lived. In Manhattan, that’s the New York County Surrogate’s Court at 31 Chambers Street. Probate involves filing the original will, providing death certificates, giving notice to interested parties, and waiting for the court to issue Letters Testamentary to the executor before the estate can be administered. The timeline varies, but most uncontested Manhattan probates take six to twelve months from filing to final distribution. Contested probates can run for years.
Probate is also a public process. The will itself, the inventory of assets, and the accounting all become court records that anyone can request. For families with privacy concerns or complicated dynamics, that matters.
What a Revocable Living Trust Does
A revocable living trust is created and funded during your lifetime. You’re typically both the grantor and the initial trustee, which means you keep full control over the assets while you’re alive and competent. On your death or incapacity, a successor trustee you’ve named takes over without any court involvement.
The two structural advantages over a will:
- Assets properly titled in the trust avoid Surrogate’s Court probate entirely
- The terms of the trust remain private, not filed with any court
For Manhattan families with real property in more than one state, the trust avoids the need for ancillary probate in each state where property is located. A client with a co-op in Manhattan and a vacation home in Florida or the Hamptons can put both into a single trust and skip two separate probate proceedings.
The trade-off is upfront work. A trust only avoids probate for assets that are actually retitled into it. That means new deeds for real property, updated brokerage account registrations, and a coordinated plan for retirement accounts, which generally pass by beneficiary designation rather than through the trust.
The New York Estate Tax Reality
This is where Manhattan estate planning gets specific. New York imposes its own estate tax separate from the federal tax, with a basic exclusion amount of $7,350,000 for 2026 according to the New York Department of Taxation and Finance.
Two features of the New York estate tax catch families off guard:
The cliff. If your taxable estate exceeds 105% of the exemption, meaning $7,717,500 in 2026, the exemption disappears entirely and the entire estate gets taxed from the first dollar. An estate at $7.4 million pays only modest tax. An estate at $7.8 million can owe several hundred thousand dollars because the exemption is gone. New York rates range from 3.06% to 16%.
No portability. The federal system lets a surviving spouse use the deceased spouse’s unused exemption. New York does not. If the first spouse to die leaves everything outright to the survivor, the deceased spouse’s $7.35 million exemption is lost forever. A well-drafted credit shelter trust, also called a bypass trust, captures that exemption at the first death and preserves it for the family.
For Manhattan families with a brownstone or a high-floor condo, retirement accounts, and life insurance, hitting the $7.35 million threshold is more common than people expect. The market value of a single Upper East Side townhouse can put a family in the cliff zone on its own.
When a Trust Actually Earns Its Setup Cost
Setting up and funding a revocable living trust costs more upfront than a will. It’s worth it for families who fit one or more of the following:
- Real estate in more than one state
- An estate approaching or exceeding the $7.35 million New York threshold, where credit shelter planning matters
- A privacy concern, whether tied to business interests, a public profile, or family complexity
- A blended family where one spouse has children from a prior marriage
- An adult child with special needs who shouldn’t inherit outright
- A desire to skip Surrogate’s Court for the surviving spouse’s sake
A will alone is often sufficient for younger families with modest estates, no real property outside New York, and no particular privacy or blended-family issues. The will should still be paired with a power of attorney, health care proxy, and HIPAA release, which are separate documents that handle incapacity rather than death.
How Roven Law Group Approaches Estate Planning
A solid estate plan is built around the specific assets a family owns and the relationships involved, not a one-size template. That means looking at the real estate, the retirement accounts, the beneficiary designations, the business interests if any, and the family structure before deciding whether a will-based plan or a trust-based plan fits. Janice G. Roven has been preparing wills and trusts for New York families for more than 35 years, including credit shelter planning, blended-family arrangements, and coordination with life insurance trusts where the estate approaches the New York cliff.
For readers who want to verify the current numbers themselves, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance publishes the basic exclusion amount and estate tax tables at tax.ny.gov, and the New York County Surrogate’s Court provides procedural guidance for executors at nycourts.gov.
The Bottom Line
Wills and trusts are tools, not status symbols. The right plan depends on what you own, where you own it, who you’re trying to protect, and how close your estate sits to the New York exemption. To talk through which approach actually fits your family and your assets, schedule a consultation with Roven Law Group.
