Succession Planning Professionals

At Daehnke Cruz, we are working closely with business and estate succession professionals, including trusts and estates lawyers, accountants, trustees, wealth managers and financial planners, to make certain that succession planning includes advice about the potentially catastrophic consequences of passing contaminated sites at death. When a contaminated property is passed at death (known as "toxic succession"), the environmental cleanup liabilities are passed to the heirs, business partners, or other beneficiaries who acquire title to that property.  Because of this, the same property or business that was intended as a valuable inheritance or endowment can result in a costly, challenging environmental disaster. Failing to counsel high net worth families and businesses on these toxic succession dangers can lead to serious financial issues for the client's assets and estate.

At Daehnke Cruz Law Group, our attorneys have been exposed to numerous situations over the last 25 years where business and personal estate succession issues have resulted in dire toxic succession consequences which would have been largely avoidable with proper planning. Because of the situations we have encountered, and because of our years at the forefront of the cleanup of contaminated properties, the attorneys at our firm have developed strategies that can significantly minimize the concerns associated with the passing of contaminated properties to beneficiaries and business partners upon death.

Contamination of real property can occur from any of numerous commercial, industrial or agricultural sources, including gasoline service stations, dry cleaners, chemical or pesticide storage, and manufacturing operations.  The contamination can impact both soil and groundwater, and can lead to liability for potentially catastrophic cleanup costs, or even toxic tort lawsuits for personal injury or diminution in property values, associated with the contamination.

In addition to one-on-one legal and strategic advice on preparing and implementing Toxic Succession Plans, the firm heads up the team which is spearheading the "Campaign 5000" effort to educate legal, accounting and financial professionals and fiduciaries on the need for up front toxic succession planning. The firm's attorneys are also available to provide seminars, workshops and webinars on toxic succession planning to business and financial trade groups, or for more targeted brown bag outreach events.