M. Benjamin Tiefenback

Ben helps individuals and families plan for the future and protect their assets.

Ben starts by identifying your estate planning needs and pinpointing family dynamics and areas of potential friction. With this information, he selects the appropriate estate planning tools and builds a personalized plan that will safeguard your assets. Often, his work entails helping people bypass the probate process upon death and providing protection for surviving spouses and children when complications including divorce, creditors, and disability arise. He believes that a big part of his work is developing a plan that makes it as likely as possible that things will go on amicably after a client passes on.

His clients range from young parents desiring to plan for their minor children to elderly individuals whose primary concern is caring for a great-grandchild with special needs. Ben is efficient in his use of modern estate planning tools and loves the challenge of selecting the right tools for complicated situations. He excels at taking complex estate planning documents and breaking them down in ways that help his clients understand and feel comfortable.

While most of Ben’s work has been in preparing multigenerational asset protection trusts, he also enjoys creating and working with more complex forms of trust planning, including the use of Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLATs) and Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs) for estate tax purposes, and with the creation of business entities such as LLCs and Virginia Business Trusts for asset protection.

As a member of a large family (Ben is one of eight children), Ben has personal experience with many of the painful situations his clients oftentimes face, including special needs siblings, substance abuse, and elder care. He knows how difficult those issues can be and understands the importance of being a steadfast ally throughout the estate planning process.

In addition to a genuine enthusiasm for estate planning tools and strategy, Ben adores his wife and daughter and enjoys reading, writing, and cooking. He is also an avid player of board and card games.