Everywhere that you turn in the Hamptons and on the North Fork there are newly constructed homes. Not only is the East End’s landscape filled with residential development, but, throughout the two forks, building spec homes has become a dominant industry. Spec developers first purchase a plot of land and then improve the land with a fabulous construction that they speculate will increase the property’s valuation far more than the composite cost of the land and the construction, individually.

However, such residential construction is speculative because the house is only marketed for sale once it has either been built or is close to a finished product. As a result, spec developers are selling finished products without any guaranteed purchaser, in contrast to offering their construction services to a consumer for a fee, as is done in a custom home job. In recent years, it appears that spec developers have been very successful, as more and more speculative construction is popping up throughout our East End neighborhoods. 

Even the most magnificent homes face a challenge that can have an impact on property value, the beauty of your living space and your very health: Mold. The issue may not sound pretty, but there’s hope. Starting this year, Mold Remediation is a licensed field in New York State. 

The East End is a legacy community where families summer by the ocean, bay and wineries for continual generations. These families engage in strategic succession planning, whereby a trust, as an essential planning tool, is generally the best vessel to pass one’s Hamptons or North Fork real estate onto the next generation. A trust can address both federal and New York State estate tax issues, which can be crippling if ignored.

New York State taxes estates valued over $4,187,500 in 2016 at a rate that can reach up to 16%. In addition to New York State’s estate tax, the federal government taxes estates over $5,450,000 in 2016 at a rate that can reach up to 40%. So all individuals who don’t want their family’s summer home to fall victim to the tax collector must consider how best to pass their legacy onto the next generation.

Even with lower real estate valuations, trusts remain an essential succession-planning tool because they can prevent creditors from seizing certain properties and can control future generations from engaging in an undesired liquidation of the family’s home.