Robbins Law Firm is proud to serve the families of Cornelius with estate planning that’s thoughtful, practical, and deeply personal.
We are a fully staffed in-person firm dedicated to helping you protect what matters most.
If you own a home on Lake Norman, you’ve watched property values in Cornelius, Davidson, and Mooresville climb for years. That lake house, the retirement accounts, the business you run off Highway 21—it adds up to more than most families realize until someone has to settle it. And here’s the part nobody warns you about: a trust that’s drafted vaguely or never properly funded fails at the exact moment your family is counting on it. The assets land in probate anyway. A child with special needs loses their Medicaid. A trustee with no clear limits does as they please. You paid for protection your family never actually gets.
A trust attorney in North Carolina exists to close that gap. At Robbins Law Firm in Cornelius, we draft your trust to hold up under pressure, and we fund it ourselves—so when the day comes, your assets pass directly to the people you name, on your terms, without a courtroom in the middle. That’s the whole point of doing this right.
North Carolina trusts are governed by the North Carolina Uniform Trust Code, Chapter 36C. The statute spells out what a trustee can and can’t do, what rights your beneficiaries have, and how a trust can be challenged. When a trust is written loosely, that’s where the fights start—a trustee oversteps, a beneficiary contests, and the family that was supposed to be protected ends up in front of a clerk of superior court in Mecklenburg or Iredell County instead.
The failures are predictable. An unfunded trust—where the documents exist but the house was never retitled into it—sends your estate straight to probate, the public, county-by-county process the trust was meant to avoid. A special needs provision drafted wrong disqualifies a disabled beneficiary from the government benefits Chapter 36C was specifically written to preserve. A trustee given broad powers with no guardrails makes decisions you’d never have approved. Every one of these is avoidable with drafting done by someone who’s seen the aftermath.
Christine Robbins spent nearly two decades as a trust and estate litigator before she ever drafted a plan. Most attorneys learn how a trust is supposed to be written. Christine spent years in North Carolina courtrooms watching how they break—the clause too vague to enforce, the trustee who self-dealt, the trust that was signed but never funded. She brings that to the drafting table now. Every document we produce gets read the way an opposing litigator would read it, looking for the weak point, before your family ever has to rely on it.
The foundation of most plans. You keep full control while you're alive—amend it or revoke it anytime—and at your death it distributes your assets without probate. Especially valuable if you own a primary home in Cornelius and a second property elsewhere in the state. It anchors most complete estate plans.
Built to protect. Assets transferred in are generally removed from your taxable estate and may be shielded from certain creditors. A core tool in long-term care and estate tax planning.
Provides for a loved one with a disability without costing them Medicaid or SSI. Chapter 36C addresses these directly, and the drafting has to be exact—one wrong provision undoes the protection.
For families with giving goals or more complex tax pictures, we build trusts that serve both legacy and planning objectives.
A trust only works if it’s funded—if your assets are actually moved into it through deed transfers, account retitling, and updated beneficiary designations. Most firms draft the document, hand you a binder, and leave the funding as your homework. It doesn’t get finished, the assets never make it in, and the family lands in probate regardless. We handle funding as part of every trust engagement. It’s not an add-on; it’s the work.
A form can’t fund your trust, can’t tailor it to a blended family or a special needs beneficiary, and can’t anticipate how it might be challenged. Under Chapter 36C, the details decide whether the trust holds—and an experienced attorney is who gets the details right.
The successor trustee you named steps in and distributes assets on your terms, without court supervision.
Yes—usually on grounds of capacity, undue influence, or improper execution. Careful drafting and solid documentation are what shut those challenges down.
Most documents are drafted within a few weeks. Funding takes longer depending on your assets. We coordinate the entire process with you.
Robbins Law Firm is based in Cornelius, with a second office in Denver, NC. We work with families across the Lake Norman corridor—Cornelius, Huntersville, Mooresville, Davidson—and throughout the greater Charlotte region. To find out whether a trust fits your situation, contact us. We’ll review where things stand, tell you what we’d recommend, and give you a flat price before you decide anything.
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Christine Robbins is the founder and Managing Attorney of Robbins Law Firm, bringing over 25 years of dedicated legal expertise to estate planning, probate, and small business law. A graduate of Rutgers Law School, she is licensed to practice in both North Carolina and Florida. Prior to launching her boutique firm, Christine spent nearly two decades as a partner at Akerman, LLP, one of the nation's largest and most respected law firms, where she specialized in high-level trust litigation and asset protection. Today, she combines big-firm authority with personal, lifelong client care to help families and business owners securely preserve their wealth, legacies, and assets.
