The Living Trust

Estate Planning, when done properly, allows you to plan for yourself, your loved ones, and every thing that you have worked so hard for, including your home and business, without giving up control during your life, or at your death. The possibility of incapacity must be considered. A proper plan should allow you to give what you own to whom you want in the way and when you want them to receive it. Finally, a properly prepared estate plan should save every last dollar of taxes, professional fees and court costs.

Traditionally, there have been a number of popular Estate Planning tools used. These traditional tools include, doing nothing, or intestacy, a Will, Joint Tenancy, death beneficiary designations, Powers of Attorney, and "Bare Bones" living trusts. Unfortunately, all of these tools have serious ramifications and problems associated with their uses too numerous to recount in this brief article. However, probate and adverse tax consequences, both while alive and once you have died, are just a two of the major problems associated with these traditional tools.

There is a better tool available to home owners and business owners alike. You hear more and more about Revocable "Living" Trusts everyday. Your neighbor, accountant, financial advisor and lawyer all speak of them as being a safer, more effective estate planning tool then any of the traditional tools.

The properly drafted, prepared and funded Revocable, or "Living," Trust centered estate plan allows individuals and families to insure that all of their needs are met both during their lives and at their deaths. By creating a Revocable Trust estate plan you may insure that it contains your "special instructions" for your care, as well as your loved ones, in case of disability or death. These "special instructions" are what distinguishes a properly drafted Revocable Trust from the traditional tools, including "Bare Bone" living trusts. These instructions should be tailored to meet your desires, hopes, dreams and concerns, not someone else's! A properly drafted trust allows you to give what you have to whom you want when you want and in the way that you want. In addition a trust can, if properly structured, result in very substantial savings in taxes, professional fees and court costs.

Any properly drafted Revocable Trust centered estate plan contains additional documents, including "Pour Over" Wills, Durable Power of Attorneys for Health Care Decisions and Funding, to insure that the plan will work as designed. Assets must be retitled from your name to the name of the trust, or "funded into the trust", to secure all of the benefits available through the use of a Revocable Trust.

A Revocable Trust centered estate plan requires the guidance of a knowledgeable and caring attorney, as well as input from your advisors. A Revocable Trust can be prepared quickly, changed or revoked at any time. As the "maker" of a trust, you select your Trustees and primary beneficiaries and control every aspect of how your property will be used.