Living Trust. Download online state specific estate planning (revocable living trust) documents. Void Probate
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To better understand the issues relating to your legal situation or problem, our legal information and other law related facts may be of interest to you
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Enter the concept of Probate avoidance. There are a growing number of ways to transfer assets to inheritors free of Probate within weeks or, at most, months of death. These include making gifts before death, adding a pay-on-death designation to a bank account, holding your house in joint tenancy with right of survivorship with your spouse or partner, and naming a beneficiary for life insurance and retirement accounts.
But only the Living Trust can be used for all types of Property and offers the broad planning flexibility of a will. With a Living Trust, for example, you can name alternate beneficiaries to inherit Property if your primary beneficiary dies before you do. That's something you can't accomplish with joint tenancy or a pay-on-death bank account.
Since it makes sense to avoid Probate, does everybody need a Living Trust? Not so fast. Living trusts do have a downside. Compared to wills, Living Trusts are considerably more time-consuming to establish, involve more ongoing maintenance and are more trouble to modify. And if you hire a Lawyer, you'll probably pay upwards of $1,000 for the document. The cost will shrink dramatically, of course, if you use a self-help tool to make your own trust. (And you'll still need a simple will, as a back-up device, even if you create a trust.)
These drawbacks are clearly outweighed by the benefits for people who have large estates and therefore will achieve big savings by avoiding Probate. The same goes for older people who are likely to die in the next few or even ten years.
Once you understand what a Living Trust is and how simple it is to prepare it, you can judge for yourself whether it makes sense to buy one from a professional or do it yourself. In our opinion, anyone -- Lawyer or non-Lawyer -- who charges more than $300-$400 for a basic Probate-avoidance Living Trust (plus a reasonable secretarial fee for transferring Property to the trust) is charging too much. But you'll probably have a tough time finding a Lawyer who will agree.
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Return to all Living Trust legal information
Legal Articles about Living Trust
Living Trust Frequently Asked Questions
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Problems Solved by Estate Planning
A living trust can solve many of the problems encountered in estate planning. Some ...
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Try to Avoid Probate with Living Trust
First of all, what is probate? We've heard various things about probate and we pretty ...
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The AB Living Trust Saves Taxes
Some people must consider federal estate tax when planning their finances. Estate tax ...
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What you need to think about when writing a will: These are the things I found out when I got mine, explains SIMON ...
This is Money
We opted for the money being held in trust for them until the age of 25, with the trustees able to use the income and capital from the assets to provide for them. This can support their living costs when under 18 and be drawn on for other expenses ...
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Medicaid Planning: The Nursing Home Solution
Yeshiva World News
Plain Medicaid: To be eligible for medical care, the monthly income limit for an applicant aged 65 or older living in a one-person household is $825. ... Some people opt to have more than one trustee, for example, two children and an attorney or a ...
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