Trust

Trusts are separate legal entities created to accomplish specific goals, including avoiding probate. A trust can be thought of as a legal bucket, owning and controlling any property placed into it. A trust document creates the legal bucket, while ownership transfers and designations fill it. Common ways to fill a trust are: recording a quitclaim deed naming the trust the owner of real property, naming the trust the owner of bank accounts, and listing the trust as a beneficiary of retirement accounts and life insurance policies. After property is within a trust, it is controlled by the guidelines written in the trust document. This avoids the need to probate the assets within the trust.

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The most common type of trust used in estate planning is a revocable trust. Revocable trusts can be altered, amended, or dissolved by their creators. Some of the benefits of a revocable trust are: avoiding probate, privacy of information (information about trust assets and distributions isn’t made public, unlike wills in probate), control of assets and distributions after passing, and avoidance of estate taxes. Trusts can be useful tools to accomplish specific goals. However, they can be more costly, intricate, and time consuming. There are many different kinds of revocable trusts, each used to accomplish a different goal, in addition to probate avoidance. For example, there are: general living trusts, charitable trusts, business trusts, cabin trusts, pet trusts, and special needs trusts, to name a few.

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The link below provides a fill-able document meant to obtain the information you would need to create a trust. There's also a link to a document meant to obtain the information needed to transfer real property into a trust.  

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If you would like to speak with an attorney, or to have one review your completed Trust Questionnaire, please email us at info@nextgenerationlegal.com or call 651-243-0716