Create a Living Trust Online

WillMaker's Living Trust Creation Software

When it comes to DIY living trusts, we think you can't do better than WillMaker. The WillMaker Living Trust is an excellent value, time-tested over decades, and easy to use. Further, when you purchase WillMaker, you also have access to:

• an entire suite of estate planning documents, including wills, financial powers of attorney, health care directives, final arrangements, letters to survivors, and many other useful documents
• the option to create a separate online storage account for your documents
• robust on-screen help that guides you through each interview
• detailed instructions for signing your documents
• letters for your executors, successor trustees, and agents describing their duties
• the choice to use the program online or as downloadable software
• ongoing legal and technical updates, and
• the ability to make documents for yourself and your immediate family.

Should You Set Up a Trust Yourself?

While living trust creation software is a good choice for many people, others need or want features that such programs do not provide. When considering what features to include in the WillMaker living trust, we aim for a balance that makes it both useful and safe to use. While we would love to make a product that meets everyone's needs, it's not practical or legally prudent to do so. With that in mind, here are lists of what WillMaker's living trust can and cannot do.

With WillMaker's living trust you can:

• Keep your property out of probate.
• Name beneficiaries for trust property.
• Divide shared gifts using percentages or fractions.
• Name alternates in case your first choices don't survive you.
• Provide property management for trust property left to young people (through a child's trust or your state's UTMA).
• Name a person who will manage trust property when you cannot.
• Name a person who will decide when you can no longer manage your affairs.
• Create a shared trust for you and your spouse or partner.
• Create a certification of trust.

With WillMaker's living trust, you cannot:

• Leave property under conditions (for example, under the condition that a beneficiary must act in a certain way to get the gift).
• Include detailed explanations about your estate planning decisions.
• Leave property to your pet or use the trust to describe how to care for a pet.
• Provide specific compensation for your successor trustee.
• Include firearms as trust property.
• Forgive debts others owe you.
• Create a trust for someone with special needs.
• Shelter property from any kind of taxes.

Using WillMaker to Make a Living Trust

With WillMaker, making a living trust is as easy as it can be, but getting it done still takes some serious thought and determination. Those with straightforward situations can make their trust document in as little as an hour, but if you have many items to list or have complicated beneficiary plans, you should allow for more time. You don't have to do it all at once; you can start and stop as you need or want. Here's the process from start to finish.

Purchase WillMaker

There are several ways to buy WillMaker. Although the process differs for each, they all take you to (essentially) the same product. Here are some options and how each works.

WillMaker.com. Buying WillMaker on WillMaker.com is the most direct route and allows you to take advantage of occasional discounts. Your purchase creates your own WillMaker account, where you can start making documents or download the software to your computer. WillMaker.com is also the only purchase point that offers WillMaker packages. You can buy just the will, final arrangements, and health care directive as the "Starter" package; the complete software (including the living trust) as the "Plus" package; or the complete software and a subscription to an online vault as the "All Access" package.

WillMaker download. On Amazon, you can buy WillMaker as downloadable software. After installing the program on your computer, you can start making your documents right away. Or, from the software, you can make a WillMaker.com account and use the program online.

WillMaker book. For those who like to hold and read a physical thing, we offer WillMaker as a "book and software kit" through booksellers. You receive the book through the mail and then use a code printed in the back to access your WillMaker account. From there, you can make your documents online or download the software. The book is a printed version of the legal manual that comes with all versions of WillMaker.

Choose Online or Download

After you buy WillMaker, your next step is to decide whether to make your living trust using the online app or downloadable software. All ways of buying WillMaker provide access to both platforms, but in different ways (see above).

Each platform uses the same interviews and produces the same WillMaker documents. The key difference between them is that the online version is cloud-based (so you can access it from any device), whereas the software lives only on your computer (so no data is stored on the internet).

Ongoing access to your documents is also a bit different on each platform. With the software, you can access and make changes to documents for as long as the software lives on your computer, but it will receive updates only through its version year. Online, you'll have access to your documents for as long as you keep your WillMaker account, but your ability to make changes to them lasts for a year from the time you purchase the program or create your account. After that year, Nolo will offer you a steep discount to renew.

Which platform to use is a personal choice that comes down to how you want to access the program, where you want your documents stored, and for how long you want to be able to make changes. One caution: The two versions are separate and cannot share data. So you can make documents in both versions, but you can access your documents only on the platform that created them.

Prepare Before Making Your Document

It will be easier to make your living trust if you've given some thought to the following matters:

• Do you want to make an individual trust or a shared trust?
• What property do you want to include in the trust?
• Who should get that property after you die?
• Who should get the property if your first choices are not available?
• If any trust beneficiaries are young people—children or young adults—who should manage trust property until they can handle their own finances?
• Who should manage your trust property after you die or lose the capacity to manage your affairs?
• Who should decide when you do not have the capacity to manage your affairs?

You'll need to address each of these issues to make your living trust document. Don't worry if the questions seem overwhelming or if you don't immediately have all of the answers. You can work on your living trust at your own pace, pausing and coming back as many times as you need.

Go Through the Interview

Making your living trust document with WillMaker is intuitive and straightforward. The decisions you'll have to make might not be easy, but using the program should be. On every screen, you'll find a "Helpful Information" section that will answer most questions you might have at that point of the interview. If you want to learn more, many answers in that section contain links to WillMaker's online legal manual, which provides detailed information about each step.

In the first part of the interview, you'll tell WillMaker which state you live in and which kind of trust you want to make (individual or shared). Then you'll provide information about yourself and name your successor trustees. At the heart of the interview, you'll describe the property you want to include in your trust, name beneficiaries for that property, and set up property management for young beneficiaries if needed. To finish, WillMaker asks some wrap-up questions about your beneficiaries and then shows you a summary of your answers.

Review and Finalize Your Trust Document

When you've finished the interview and reviewed your information on the summary screen, WillMaker will produce your document and show you a preview. After you review it, you can go back into the interview and modify your answers. When you're ready, you'll save your document to your computer as a PDF or send it straight to your printer.

At this point, you will read your document carefully to ensure it does exactly what you want it to do. One of the great advantages of using WillMaker is that it puts your living trust in plain language, so you should be able to understand it even if it uses some unfamiliar terms. To modify your document, you can go back into the interview, change your answers, and produce a new document as many times as you need. When you're satisfied, you'll print a final copy.

As with any living trust, next you will:

• take the trust document to a notary where you'll sign it and have it notarized
• transfer titled property into your trust, and
• store your trust in a secure location known to your successor trustee.

Along with detailed instructions about those steps, WillMaker's living trust includes a letter for your successor trustees that describes their duties. You can give it to your successor trustees now or store it with your living trust for them to read later.

After Creating Your Living Trust

You can modify your living trust for as long as you have access to a current version of WillMaker (see above). For shared living trusts, your ability to make changes becomes limited after one grantor dies.

There might be times when you need to prove the existence of your trust to banks or other institutions. To help with that, WillMaker provides a certification of trust. You'll finalize that document separately (and get it notarized) and can then show it (instead of your entire trust document) to any institution that needs to know about your trust.

Rounding Out Your Estate Plan

You'll want to prepare a few other estate planning documents to accompany your living trust. You can use WillMaker to make a backup will, powers of attorney for finances, health care directives, final arrangements, letters to survivors, and many others. As you make your documents, WillMaker remembers key information about you and your beneficiaries so that you don't have to enter the same information repeatedly. Further, unlike any other estate planning program, all members of your immediate family can make their own documents with your purchase of WillMaker. When you're all done, you'll have comprehensive personalized estate plans for your entire family.