The legal device called a last will or last will and testament is commonly used in the field of estate planning. If you are not aware of all the facts, you may naturally assume that you should use a last will when you are devising your estate plan.
A last will can be effective under some simple circumstances, but before you make any final decisions, you should understand some things about living trusts. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be a millionaire to benefit from the creation of a revocable living trust.
There are many different benefits that you gain when you create a revocable living trust as an alternative to a last will. One of them is the avoidance of probate. If you use a will, the assets cannot be distributed to the heirs until the estate has been probated by the court. This would typically take close to a year, and it could take longer if there are complications.
On the other hand, if you use a living trust, the trustee that you name in the trust declaration can distribute assets to the beneficiaries in a timely manner outside of probate.
In addition to the probate avoidance benefit, you also have the power to leave behind specific instructions that the trustee must follow after your passing. If you want to, you could instruct the trustee to distribute limited assets over an extended period of time to prevent beneficiaries from burning through their inheritances too quickly.
You could also empower a disability trustee to manage the trust in the event of your incapacitation.
April Living Trust Seminars
If you are getting interested, you may want to take the next step. We make every effort to educate people in the greater Indianapolis area so that they can make sound estate planning decisions. To this end we hold seminars on an ongoing basis, and we have a series of seminars coming up in April.
The seminars are going to specifically focus on the value of revocable living trusts. This is a great opportunity to obtain some extremely useful information, and there is no charge to attend the seminars.
The first seminar is going to take place on April 7th at Jonathan Byrd’s Cafeteria in Johnson County. That is an afternoon session, and it is going to start at 2:00 p.m., and it will run for a couple of hours. At 7:00 p.m. that same day we will be holding another seminar in Plainfield at the Cambria Suites Hotel.
Once again, the seminars are free, but we do ask that you register in advance because seating is limited. You can visit this page to see the complete schedule: April Indianapolis Living Trust Seminars.
Paul A. Kraft, Estate Planning Attorney
Mr. Kraft assists clients primarily in the areas of estate planning and administration, Medicaid planning, federal and state taxation, real estate and corporate law, bringing the added perspective of an accounting background to his work.
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