About Living Trusts
About Living Trusts
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A living trust does have unique problems and complications. Most people think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, but before you make a living trust, you should be aware of them. Paperwork Setting up a living trust isn't difficult or expensive, but it requires some paperwork. The first step is to create
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Helpful Definitions for WillMaker's Living Trust
When you’re making your living trust with WillMaker, you may come across some terms that are new or unclear to you. Unfortunately, you can't escape legal lingo entirely when you deal with living trusts. A complete onscreen glossary is available at www.nolo.com/dictionary. But keeping it simple, here
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How a Living Trust Helps Your Family
If you make a basic living trust—like WillMaker's living trust—you can save your family a great deal of time and money. The big advantage is that property left through a trust avoids probate. There are other pluses as well. Avoiding Probate Unless you make a trust or use some other probate-avoidance
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A basic revocable living trust—like the one you can make with Nolo’s Living Trust—does essentially what a will does: leaves your property to the people you want to inherit it. But because a trustee owns your property, your assets don't have to go through probate at your death. While Alive, You
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Is a Shared Trust Right for You?
When you make WillMaker’s living trust, you can make an individual trust or a shared trust. An individual trust contains property that only you own, and a shared trust contains property owned by you, your spouse, or co-owned by you and your spouse. If you and your spouse or partner co-own most of your
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As wonderful as living trusts can be, they aren't a complete estate plan by themselves. Here are some things that trusts can't do. Shelter Assets for Purposes of Medicaid Eligibility You cannot affect your eligibility for Medicaid by holding property in a revocable living trust. Assets held in a living
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WillMaker's Revocable Living Trust
With WillMaker, you can make revocable living trusts for your whole family, in addition to WillMaker’s other essential estate planning documents, like the will, health care directive, and power of attorney for finances. What You Can Do With Your WillMaker Living Trust Here’s are some of the things
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Welcome to WillMaker's Living Trust
With WillMaker's Living Trust, you can easily make a living trust that keeps trust property out of probate. After you complete the friendly interview (which takes less than an hour), you’ll have a little more work to do on your own. But it’s a fairly straightforward process that will save your family
Successor Trustees
Successor Trustees
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Choosing the Successor Trustee of an Individual Trust
The person or institution you choose as successor trustee will have a crucial role: to manage your trust property (if you become incapacitated) or distribute it to your beneficiaries (after your death). Obviously, when you are giving someone this much power and discretion, you should choose someone with
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Successor Trustees for Shared Trust
You must also choose a successor trustee -- someone to act as trustee after both of you have died or become incapacitated. The successor trustee has no power or responsibility if at least one original trustee is alive and capable of managing the trust. The Successor Trustee's Duties After Both Grantors'
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To be legally valid, every living trust must have a trustee -- someone to manage the property held in trust. When you create a shared revocable living trust, both grantors are the trustees while you are alive. You'll name someone else to be the successor trustee, to take over after both of you have died.
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Who Are the Trustees and What Do They Do?
Every living trust must have a trustee—that is, a person (or institution) who manages trust property under the terms of the trust. When you make WillMaker's living trust, you are the trustee of your trust. In the trust document, you name someone else to be the successor trustee to take over after you
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Who Should Serve as Your Successor Trustee?
When you make Nolo's Living Trust, you will choose a successor trustee to manage trust property after you die. The person or institution you choose as successor trustee will have a crucial role: to manage your trust property (if you become incapacitated) or distribute it to your beneficiaries (after
Describing Property
Describing Property
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Decide What Property to Hold in Trust
After you make a list of what you own, you're ready to decide what items you want to hold in trust to avoid probate fees. Think about including: houses and other real estate jewelry, antiques, furs and valuable furniture stock in a closely held corporation stock, bond and other security accounts held
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How to Describe Trust Property
When the program asks you to list the property you want to hold in trust, describe each item clearly enough so that the surviving trustee or successor trustee can identify the property and transfer it to the right person. No magic legal words are required. Think about whom the property will ultimately
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Property Ownership in a Shared Trust
Before you begin to list property you want to add to your living trust, sort out what you have and who owns it: you, your spouse or partner or both of you. You need to label each item this way because each grantor names beneficiaries for his or her share of the trust property separately. After you've
Naming Benefieicaries
Naming Benefieicaries
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Choosing the Beneficiaries of a Shared Trust
After you've entered a list of the property you're going to hold in trust, the next step is to say whom you want to inherit that property. In the trust document, you and your spouse or partner must each name beneficiaries -- the family, friends or organizations who will receive your share of the trust
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Alternate and Residuary Beneficiaries
After you name the primary beneficiaries of your living trust, you will have a few more choices to make. You can make a backup plan by naming alternate beneficiaries for any of your gifts. And unless you’ve named just one person (or a group of people) to receive all of your trust property, you’ll
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Property Management for Young Beneficiaries
If any of beneficiaries of your living trust (including alternate and residuary beneficiaries) might inherit trust property before they are ready to manage it without an adult's help, you should arrange for someone else to manage it for them for a while. There are several ways to go about it: Leave
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UTMA Custodianships and Subtrusts
When making your living trust with WillMaker, if you choose to provide property management for your young beneficiaries, you'll need to decide between using an UTMA custodianship or a children's subtrust. You can learn more about this choice in Property Management for Young Beneficiaries. Here, you can
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When making a living trust with WillMaker, after you've entered a list of the property to include in your trust, the next step is to say who you want to inherit that property. You can name a beneficiary for each item of trust property separately or name one beneficiary to receive everything. The beneficiaries
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Your Spouse’s and Children’s Rights to Inherit From You
If you’re wondering whether you must leave your spouse or children any of your property, you will find the following information useful. However, if you’re concerned that someone in your family might challenge the terms of your trust, contest your will, or call your capacity into question, do not
Finalizing
Finalizing
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Signing, Storing, and Registering Your Trust
After you’ve completed the WillMaker interview for your living trust, you’re almost done – but you still have several absolutely vital steps to take care of. You must print out your living trust document, sign it, have it notarized, and transfer your property into the trust. Here is information
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Transferring Real Estate Into Your Trust
To transfer real estate (also called real property) into your living trust, you must prepare and sign a new deed, transferring ownership. You can usually fill out a new deed yourself. Preparing the Deed First, get a deed form. Try to find one that is specific to your state. You should be able to find
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Transferring Titled Property Into Your Trust
To transfer titled property into your living trust, you must change the owner's name on the title document—from your name as an individual, to the trust’s name. The trust is the new owner of the property. Here are some details about transferring the title of various types of property. A separate
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Transferring Property into Your Trust
After you sign your living trust document, you have a valid living trust. But the trust is of absolutely no use to you until the property you listed in the trust document is actually transferred into your name as trustee (or, in Colorado, to the name of the trust itself). Lawyers call this "funding"
After Finalizing
After Finalizing
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What happens after the grantor of a living trust dies? If you used WillMaker's living trust, the process works differently depending on whether you made an individual living trust or a shared trust with your spouse or partner. Overview When the grantor, who is also the trustee, dies, the successor trustee
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You can make simple amendments to trust document you make with Nolo’s Living Trust, even after you sign it. Who Can Amend Your Trust Document Who can amend the terms of a living trust document depends on whether you created an individual living trust or a shared one. Individual living trust. If you
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Most people who make a living trust—like the one you make with WillMaker—should also make a backup will to take care of a few things that you can’t do in your trust, like name guardians for minor children, name an executor, and name beneficiaries for any property that you don’t put into your
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You probably won't need a lawyer's help to make your living trust with WillMaker. But you may come up with questions about your particular situation that should be answered by an expert. This is especially likely if you have a very large estate, must plan for an incapacitated minor or have to deal with
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Making a Certification or Abstract of Trust
When you go to transfer property in or out your living trust, a bank or other institution may ask to see the trust document. The institution wants to know that the trust exists and that you really have the authority you say you do. Use a Certification in Lieu of Your Trust Document If you don't want
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Using a living trust is an effective and time-tested way to avoid probate, but living trusts aren't the only probate-avoidance method around. Here are some methods you might want to investigate, to use with or instead of a living trust. Payable-on-Death Bank Accounts Payable-on-death bank accounts offer
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If you're like most people, amending or restating your living trust will take care of your changing circumstances over the years and you will never need to revoke it. But there are, of course, a few exceptions to that rule. You can revoke your living trust at any time. Revoking a living trust (unlike
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Troubleshooting Your Living Trust
After you make your living trust, you may end up living with your trust for a long while—and life changes can present issues for your living trust. Here is information about how to proceed if you run into any of these common situations. Trust Property Earns Income No separate income tax records or