Setting Up a Living Trust
Trusts are one of the most important estate planning tools you can use to protect yourself, your family and your assets. A living trust is a tool that allows you to transfer assets into a trust while you’re still alive.
What is a Living Trust?
A living trust is a legal document that allows you to manage your assets after you pass away. They can also be called revocable trusts, because they are revocable (meaning they can be changed) during your lifetime.
A living trust is not specific to any state and can be set up by anyone regardless of age or health status.
Why should I set up a living trust?
The main reason to set up a living trust is to protect your assets. When you die, your property will be transferred to the person or people you’ve named in your trust. If no one has been designated to manage it and administer the affairs of your estate after death, then probate court will take over.
The process of probate can be expensive and time-consuming–and that’s just if there aren’t any challenges to how much money should be distributed among heirs (or whether they’re even entitled). The alternative? Avoiding probate altogether by having all of this taken care of while you’re still alive through a living trust!
How do I set one up?
Find a lawyer. You’ll need to find a lawyer who specializes in estate planning, and who can help you set up your trust.
Find a financial planner. A good financial planner will be able to help you decide how much money you should leave to each beneficiary and make sure that it’s enough for them to live comfortably after the death of their parent or guardian (i.e., provide for any special needs). The amount should also take into account taxes; if the beneficiary is inheriting property from his/her parents’ estate, he/she may have to pay capital gains tax on what he/she receives as well as income tax on his/her inheritance if it exceeds $11,200 per year ($22K married).
Find an accountant–and maybe two–to review all this information before finalizing anything formalized by writing out the actual living will itself with signatures from both parents confirming their wishes regarding end-of-life care decisions made by others if necessary due unforeseen circumstances arising during life threatening illnesses like cancer where one parent might not survive long enough before passing away due illness leaving behind dependents who would then become orphans without guardianship support provided by another family member willing
Does it cost anything to set up a living trust?
It depends on the complexity of your estate. If you have a simple estate, setting up a living trust might not cost much at all. However, if you have multiple properties and assets to transfer into the trust, it can get expensive fast.
You should expect lawyers’ fees to range anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 depending on their experience level and whether they charge by the hour or flat fee (or both). If possible, try finding an attorney who charges by the hour instead of taking one lump sum so that they’re incentivized to work quickly while keeping costs down for clients like yourself who want good service but don’t want to break their bank accounts doing so!
If you don’t have a Living Trust, you need to get one!
A living trust is a legal document that allows you to specify who will manage your assets and pay your debts if you become incapacitated, or even if you pass away.
If you don’t have one, it’s important to set one up as soon as possible. If something happens to you without one in place, the state will appoint someone (usually a family member) who may not have your best interests at heart–or even know what they’re doing!
Setting up an estate plan is easy and affordable no matter where in America you live: The average cost of setting up a basic estate plan is $1,000-$2,500 depending on where in America it was created and how complicated the documents are.
Conclusion
So if you haven’t set up a living trust yet, it’s time to do so! You can use the information in this article as a starting point for your research. There are many resources available online and in person that will help guide you through the process of creating and managing your trust.
