No obligation. No hourly billing. Just a straightforward conversation about your succession plan.
100% Confidential. Flat-fee pricing.
Short answer: A farm estate plan is a set of papers that says who gets your land, equipment, and farm business, and who makes decisions if you cannot. For most farm families that means a will or a funded revocable trust, powers of attorney, and health care papers. Midwest Ag Law writes these for flat fees in Nebraska and Minnesota.
The law behind this page: Nebraska Probate Code (wills), Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2201; Nebraska Uniform Trust Code, Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3801; Nebraska transfer on death deeds, Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-3401; Minnesota Probate Code, Minn. Stat. ch. 524; Minnesota Trust Code, Minn. Stat. ch. 501C.
You’ve seen what happens when a farm family doesn’t plan. The patriarch passes away. There’s no will, or worse, a simple will that was drafted 20 years ago and never updated. The operation halts because nobody has clear authority. The children argue over equipment valuations. The land gets listed to pay off a non-farming sibling’s share. Generations of work, gone in 18 months.
The families who come to Midwest Ag Law are usually in one of two places: they either have nothing in writing and know they’re overdue, or they had a generic trust drawn up years ago by a city attorney who didn’t understand farming, and deep down, they know it’s not going to hold up when it counts.
Either way, the conversation starts the same: “We’ve been meaning to do this for years.”
We get it. It’s a hard conversation. But the cost of avoiding it falls directly on the people you love most.
Most estate plans sit in a drawer and collect dust. We make sure yours is funded, implemented, and understood by every family member. That’s the difference between a legal document and a real plan.
Estate planning controls the assets; succession planning controls the operation. A farm needs both to survive.
Passing down a farm isn’t like passing down a 401(k) or a house in the suburbs. It’s an active, capital-intensive business. The fundamental challenge of farm succession is almost always the same: How do we keep the farm intact for the child who is farming it, while still being “fair” to the children who aren’t?
If you split the land equally among four kids, the one farming it usually can’t afford to buy out the other three. The farm gets sold. If you give the land to the farming child and the life insurance to the others, the others often feel shortchanged because land values have skyrocketed.
There is no perfect mathematical equation, but a customized succession plan creates a structure that works. We help families navigate:
Separating the operating business (equipment, grain, cattle) from the land holding entity (real estate). This allows farming children to control operations while non-farming children maintain an equity stake in the land.
Pre-determined rules for how farming children can buy out non-farming siblings over time, including valuation formulas and long-term payment structures that the farm cash flow can actually support.
A clear roadmap for shifting management, labor, and ownership from the senior generation to the junior generation over a period of 5-10 years, rather than an abrupt handoff at death.
We don’t do hourly billing, and we don’t hand you a stack of paper and wish you luck. Our process is designed to be transparent, thorough, and completely finished when we’re done.
We sit down to understand your operation, your assets, your family dynamics, and your goals. We’ll present the options and give you a firm, flat-fee quote. No surprises.
We build your custom Estate Plan: Trusts, Wills, Powers of Attorney, Healthcare Directives, and Succession Agreements. We review it together in plain English until you understand every page.
This is what sets us apart. We don’t just sign the documents; we do the heavy lifting of retitling your land, bank accounts, and entities into the Trust so it actually works.
Every comprehensive farm estate plan utilizes a combination of these core legal instruments.
The cornerstone of keeping the farm out of probate. You maintain total control while alive, but assets transition privately and immediately upon death. Learn more →
The safety net. Ensures any assets accidentally left out of the trust are “poured over” into it at death. Also used to name guardians for minor children. Learn more →
If you suffer a stroke or severe accident, who signs checks, sells grain, and renews operating notes? This document gives a trusted person immediate authority. Learn more →
Names who can make medical decisions on your behalf and provides clear instructions on end-of-life care, sparing your family from agonizing choices. Learn more →
Advanced tools used specifically to shield the farm and core assets from Medicaid recovery and long-term nursing home costs (requires early planning). Learn more →
Properly structures the ownership, legal use, and intergenerational transfer of NFA-regulated firearms securely within the family. Learn more →
Reality: A will is a set of instructions for the probate court. It does not keep property out of probate. Property in your name alone usually goes through probate, with or without a will. Joint ownership, beneficiary designations, transfer on death deeds, and small estate affidavits can avoid it. So can a funded trust. For most farm families, a funded trust is the cleanest way to keep the whole operation out of court.
Reality: With a Revocable Living Trust, you are the Trustee. You still buy, sell, farm, and manage everything exactly as you do now. You use your same social security number for taxes. Day-to-day, absolutely nothing changes while you’re alive.
Reality: Estate planning isn’t about how much money you have; it’s about keeping what you have out of court and out of conflict. For a farm family, a modest operation is just as capable of being torn apart by a family squabble as a much larger one.
The basics are the same in both states: a will or trust, powers of attorney, and a health care directive. The differences are in taxes and signing.
Don’t leave the future of your operation to the state of Nebraska or Minnesota. Schedule a free consultation with Kole. Flat-fee pricing: you’ll know exactly what it costs before we start.
