FOR ESTATE & TRUST ATTORNEYS

Domicile plans fail on facts. Give the facts a record.

A domicile change that saves state estate tax, or a trust structured around residency, holds only if the client's actual life matches the plan. When a state challenges domicile at death, or a trust's situs is questioned, the case is argued from where the person really spent their days. Most clients cannot prove that. SpyglassBeacon makes the proof automatic.

Where the day record decides estate matters

Domicile at death. States with estate taxes (New York's cliff being the sharp example) contest the domicile of decedents who "moved to Florida" but kept the apartment and the pattern. The estate carries the burden with whatever records exist; a contemporaneous multi-year day ledger is the record you wish every decedent had kept.
The residency side of the plan. A client who changes domicile but remains a statutory resident (a New York abode plus 184 days) undermines the income-tax half of the plan while it runs. The app warns before the line, not after.
Trust and beneficiary residency. State taxation of trusts can turn on the residence of grantors, fiduciaries, or beneficiaries, and those are day-and-ties questions too. A clean record for the relevant people removes a variable from the structure.

What the client's record looks like

A per-state (and per-country) day count with a day-by-day, timestamped appendix, exported as a PDF whenever needed. Counting uses the any-part-of-a-day standard residency examinations apply, days the client marks as mere transit stay visible rather than vanishing, and the history accumulates year over year, which is exactly the multi-year pattern domicile disputes turn on. The data lives on the client's device; you receive only the reports they choose to export.

Fits the advice you already give

Your domicile-change memo already tells clients to keep a travel diary. They don't. Recommending an automatic one costs the client $29.99 a year, requires no account, and produces the diary as a court-ready artifact instead of a good intention. It is documentation for the plan, not a substitute for it, and it never gives your client tax or legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

Updated 2026-08-26

How does a day record help a domicile dispute?

Domicile challenges reconstruct where the person actually lived: homes, ties, and above all the pattern of days across years. A contemporaneous, timestamped per-state ledger is direct evidence of that pattern, made as it happened, which is the quality auditors and courts weight most.

Does the attorney get access to the client's location data?

No. The history stays on the client's device; there is no account and no cloud copy. The client exports a PDF report and shares it with you like any other document.

Does it cover the income-tax side of a domicile plan too?

Yes. The same record tracks statutory-residency day counts, with warnings before thresholds like New York's 183 days, plus international clocks for clients with cross-border lives.

Is this a substitute for a domicile checklist?

No. It is the measurement layer under the checklist: the ties work is still the plan, and the day ledger is the proof the plan was lived.

The travel diary clients actually keep

Automatic, timestamped, on the client's device, exported when the file needs it.

See the app