A thoughtful estate plan is the difference between your family reading a clear set of instructions and your family fighting through probate court. We build comprehensive, tax-sensitive plans tailored to each Flathead Valley family — and we administer the estates when the plans are called on to do their work.
Cannon Breck carefully considers the needs and goals of each client as we prepare every estate plan. We deliver comprehensive, tax-sensitive documents individually tailored to the family sitting at our table — not the boilerplate that an online form or an out-of-state attorney would hand you.
WILLS · TRUSTS · POA · DIRECTIVES · PROBATE
A Cannon Breck estate plan is assembled one family at a time. We start by understanding who is in your family, what you actually own, how you want decisions made if you cannot make them yourself, and what you want to leave behind — and only then do we pull down the documents that accomplish it.
For most Flathead Valley families, that means a core package of a will, a revocable living trust, durable powers of attorney, and advance medical directives — often plus irrevocable trusts for specific tax or asset-protection goals, and property-titling work so the plan actually holds together when it's needed.
An estate plan that isn't funded isn't a plan — it's a file folder. We don't stop at drafting. We retitle real estate, we coordinate beneficiary designations, and we make sure the trust you signed actually controls the assets you own.
Tell us about your situation and we'll respond within 24–48 hours.
Your information is kept strictly confidential.
Managing Attorney · Estate Planning Practice Lead
Chad leads the firm's estate planning practice — drafting tax-sensitive wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, powers of attorney, and advance medical directives for Flathead Valley families. He also walks personal representatives and successor trustees through Montana probate and trust administration, and represents beneficiaries and fiduciaries in contested estate matters when a dispute is unavoidable. Chad's approach is to build plans assembled around the family sitting at the table — plans that actually get funded, stay current with life changes, and hold up when they're called on to do their work.
Most of our estate planning work falls into two arcs: building the plan when a family is ready to put one in place, and administering the plan when a loved one has passed or becomes incapacitated. Both require the same underlying comfort with Montana probate, trust, and tax rules — and both are where we live.
A comprehensive, tax-sensitive estate plan designed around your assets, your people, and your wishes — documented clearly and funded correctly so it's ready when it's needed.
We guide personal representatives, trustees, and families through Montana probate, trust administration, and the occasional contested matter — with a focus on closing the estate cleanly and keeping the family intact.
Eight lanes that cover the documents most Flathead Valley families need to build a working estate plan — and the administration and litigation work that follows when the plan is put to use. Each is assembled around your family, not pulled off a shelf.
A carefully drafted Montana will names your personal representative, distributes property that is not otherwise titled into your trust, provides for minor children and guardianship, and handles specific bequests. For many families the will is the backstop to the trust — but it has to exist, be validly executed, and actually match what you own.
The revocable trust is the workhorse of modern Montana estate planning: it lets you keep control of your assets during your lifetime, avoids probate on the assets funded into it, and lays out distribution rules that survive you. We draft the trust, coordinate the funding, and retitle the real estate so the trust actually owns what it is supposed to.
When the goal is tax planning, Medicaid planning, creditor protection, or structured gifting to the next generation, irrevocable trusts do work a revocable trust cannot. We draft ILITs, SLATs, qualified personal-residence trusts, and special-needs trusts — and we walk through the tradeoffs so you understand what you're giving up in exchange for the protection you're gaining.
A durable financial power of attorney lets someone you trust pay your bills, manage investments, and handle real estate if you cannot do it yourself. We draft POAs with the scope, safeguards, and springing triggers that match your circumstances — and we review the ones a bank, broker, or care facility has asked you to sign.
Montana advance-directive and living-will documents let you designate a healthcare decision-maker, document your wishes about end-of-life care, and address organ donation. A properly executed directive keeps the hospital out of the guesswork business and keeps the family out of the court system.
We represent personal representatives through the full arc of a Montana probate — from petition and appointment through inventory, creditor notice, asset distribution, and closing. We also handle informal probate where it's available, small-estate administration for qualifying estates, and ancillary probate when Flathead real estate is tied up in an out-of-state estate.
Trustees have real duties and real exposure. We advise trustees on funding, accounting, distributions, tax filings, and beneficiary communications — and we help successor trustees step into an existing trust without creating a liability of their own. When a beneficiary needs counsel instead, we represent that side of the table.
Capacity challenges, claims of undue influence, disputes over trust interpretation, accounting objections, and beneficiary-versus-trustee litigation. We prosecute and defend these matters in Flathead County and throughout Montana — always with an eye on what the litigation is costing the family, not just what it might recover.
If yours isn't here, the answer is probably a short phone call away. We keep consultations focused so you leave knowing whether you actually have a matter — or not.
It depends on what you own and where you own it. A will alone sends almost everything through Montana probate. A revocable living trust, properly funded, sidesteps probate on the assets held in trust, keeps your affairs private, and makes succession easier — especially if you own Flathead real estate along with property in another state. For many families the answer is “both”: a trust that holds the meaningful assets, and a pour-over will as the backstop.
Your estate passes under Montana's intestacy statutes, which distribute to surviving spouse and descendants in specific percentages, and fall back to parents, siblings, and more distant relatives if there are no descendants. The result is often not what you would have chosen — blended-family situations are especially prone to outcomes that surprise everyone involved. A basic will is almost always a better option.
Most Montana probate administrations close in roughly six to twelve months, though complex estates, contested matters, and illiquid assets like ranch land can extend beyond that time period. Montana has both formal and informal probate tracks; the informal track, when it's available, is faster, less expensive, and handles the majority of our probate work.
Funding a trust means legally re-titling your assets into the trust's name — deeds to real estate, bank and brokerage accounts, business interests — so the trust actually owns them. A trust that is signed but not funded accomplishes very little; the assets still go through probate. This is the single most common reason otherwise-solid estate plans fail, and it's why we don't stop at drafting.
A durable financial power of attorney authorizes someone to handle your money, property, and business affairs. An advance medical directive (sometimes paired with a living will) designates a healthcare decision-maker and documents your wishes about treatment, resuscitation, and end-of-life care. Most families need both — the financial POA and the medical directive cover different decisions at different moments.
Yes. Federal estate tax is only one consideration, and it only affects estates above a very high exemption amount. For most families the real value of a good estate plan is incapacity planning, probate avoidance, guardianship of minor children, clean succession of a family business or ranch, and keeping the family from fighting. Those goals apply at almost every asset level.
Every three to five years as a baseline, and immediately after a major life event — marriage, divorce, a birth or death in the family, a significant change in assets, a move to or from Montana, or the sale of a business. An out-of-date plan is often worse than no plan, because it creates false confidence about how things will actually unfold.
Yes, on specific grounds — lack of capacity, undue influence, fraud, duress, or improper execution — but the timelines are short and the evidentiary burden is real. If you are considering a contest, or you are a personal representative or trustee anticipating one, the first step is a privileged conversation with counsel, quickly, before the record gets harder to develop.
That usually calls for an ancillary probate proceeding in Flathead County, coordinated with the primary probate in the decedent's home state. We handle those regularly — title work, recording, tax coordination, and transfer to the beneficiaries or to a trust. Montana real estate owned by an out-of-state estate cannot simply be quit-claimed around the probate process.
We're licensed throughout Montana and routinely take on estate planning and probate matters from Missoula, Helena, the Swan, and beyond. The Flathead is our home base, but Montana probate and trust rules apply statewide — and so does our practice.
Based in Kalispell, Montana — representing clients throughout Flathead County and the surrounding Northwestern Montana region.
Whether you're building a plan for the first time, updating one that's outgrown your life, or stepping in as a personal representative or trustee, a focused initial conversation is the fastest way to know what your family actually needs.
