Practice Areas

Wills & Estate Planning

Last Wills

The State of North Carolina has already written a “will” for you, should you die without executing your own. It is called “intestate succession,” codified in Chapter 29 of the North Carolina General Statutes. For example, in part, it provides for the distribution of only one-third to one-half of your property to your spouse, depending on how many children you have, and the distribution of only one-half of your property to your spouse if you die without children but with a surviving parent. This is unacceptable to most people. This is why it is so important to execute a Last Will and Testament to dispose of your Estate as you see fit, and not the legislators in the General Assembly.

You can do virtually anything you want to do with your assets in your Will. Attorney Adam Barrington is ready to guide you through the process of determining the best way to provide for your loved ones once you have passed away. Having drafted hundreds of Wills over the years, we can help assure you that what you want will happen when the time comes. Our Wills comply with the formalities required by Chapter 31 of the North Carolina General Statutes.

Attorney Adam Barrington is also able to draft a Trust for your minor children in the unlikely event of the deaths of both parents. It is never pleasant to think about these matters, but with the right lawyer guiding you through the process, you can have the peace of mind that your children will be provided for if the unthinkable happens.

Contact Hampstead's Attorney Adam Barrington TODAY at 910-421-0421 to setup an appointment to discuss your legacy needs.

Photo of a document entitled "Last Will & Testament" with a judge's gavel on top.

Living Wills
(Declaration of a Desire for a Natural Death)

Document entitled "Living Will" with a pen on top

An instrument expressing your desires as it relates to your final wishes is a Declaration of a Desire for a Natural Death, also known as a Living Will. Few people want to be kept alive on machines or with feeding tubes or in a persistent vegetative state. To ensure that your wishes relating to your final days are honored, we can draft a Living Will. This document can direct your health care providers to withdraw life-prolonging measures when certain conditions are met. This instrument can be tailored to your specific desires or wishes.

Attorney Adam Barrington is able to help you through these oftentimes difficult decisions to ensure that your desires are honored.

Contact Hampstead's Living WIll Attorney Adam Barrington TODAY at 910-421-0421 to set up an appointment to discuss your end-of-life desires.

Durable General Powers of Attorney

There are various times when you need to empower someone else to act on your behalf. That is when you need to execute a Power of Attorney, naming someone else to be your Agent or Attorney In Fact, who can act on your behalf with regard to certain issues, such as financial matters or health care decisions. A Power of Attorney is a powerful tool that can be very helpful at times, but may also grant sweeping authority to another to act in your name. So a general word of caution is always given prior to executing a Power of Attorney.

While there are several kinds of Powers of Attorney, the two primary types with which we deal are Durable General Powers of Attorney and Health Care Powers of Attorney.

A Durable General Power of Attorney is an instrument that you execute to give another authority to conduct various sorts of financial affairs for you on your behalf. This grant of authority can be very specific, such as the authority to sell a certain piece of real estate, to very broad, to include any financial transaction which you could personally conduct. A Durable Power of Attorney is often executed by service members prior to deployment so that a loved one can conduct business in that service member's name while deployed. Again, because a Power of Attorney is a powerful instrument that can abused by the Attorney In Fact, this grant of authority should not be entered into lightly.

Document entitled "Power of Attorney" with a pen on top.

Health Care Powers of Attorney

Document entitled "Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Decisions"

A Health Care Power of Attorney gives someone else the authority to make health care decisions for you in the event you are unable to make those decisions or communicate your wishes to your health care providers. This is a solemn decision that should not be entered into lightly. You can limit the scope of your Health Care Power of Attorney or grant your Health Care Agent the authority to authorize any medical treatment that you could personally approve for yourself. We can guide you through the process of determining the best way to ensure that your health care wishes are carried out in the event you are unable to make those decisions for yourself.

Hampstead Attorney Adam Barrington is able to help you through these complex issues to ensure that your wishes are honored.