A will and a living trust both can be very important in your estate plan. However, a living trust doesn’t require probate to transfer your assets.
KYT24’s recent article entitled “Fundamentals Of A Living Trust” explains that everyone who owns a home and/or other assets should have a will or a living trust. Proper estate planning can protect your family from unnecessary court costs and delay, if you become incapacitated, disabled, or die.
With a living trust, you can avoid all probate delays and related costs and make life much simpler for your family in a crisis. If you pass away, your spouse will be able to automatically and immediately continue without any delay or unnecessary expense.
When you and your spouse both die, your assets will also transfer directly to your beneficiaries.
Living trusts can save time, expense and stress for your loved ones. Speak with an experienced estate planning attorney about creating a living trust.
A trust agreement, being a legal document, should be written by an estate planning attorney who has the knowledge and experience to prepare such a legal document to cover all of your needs and desires regarding probate. If not properly and completely drafted, you run the risk of issues after you’re gone for your family.
After your attorney drafts your living trust, you must fund the trust, by titling or adding assets to it. If assets aren’t titled to or otherwise connected to your trust agreement, they won’t be legally part of the trust.
This totally defeats the purpose of drafting your living trust agreement in the first place and may cause them to go through probate.
It’s a common mistake to fail to fund a trust, which can happen as a result of poor follow through after signing the trust.
If avoiding probate is something you would like to do, consider working with an estate planning attorney to complete a living trust and your entire estate plan. This includes a thorough review of your goals and objectives, as well as reviewing all estate assets to complete the funding of your trust, by transferring assets into the name of the living trust.
Reference: KYT24 (Nov. 14, 2020) “Fundamentals Of A Living Trust”
