Trust lawyers will help you to make effective use of trusts to protect your assets and to ensure that your family is provided for in the most appropriate way. Trusts are powerful and versatile so you can use them to accomplish many important goals. Unfortunately, many people make mistakes during the process of creating trusts that undermine their efforts to use these tools successfully to achieve their desired aims.
Frank & Kraft can help you to make sure that does not happen. Trust lawyers at our firm can work with you to determine what your goals are and to assess whether trust creation will be the best way to help you achieve those particular objectives.
If creating a trust is the best course of action for your particular situation, our firm will help you to make sure you go through the process correctly, select the right trust type, and make a legally valid trust document so you will get expected protections.
To find out more about the ways in which our firm can help you to create a trust, give us a call. You can also read on to learn about top mistakes that you’ll want to be sure to avoid when you are creating a trust.
Making the Wrong Kind of Trust
One of the most common errors involves making the wrong trust type for your situation. For example, if you make a living trust, you can retain control and flexibility of the trust, including serving as trustee. However, the trust won’t protect the assets within it in case you need costly nursing home care and don’t want to have to spend down your wealth to get means-tested Medicaid benefits.
An irrevocable trust, on the other hand, can provide broader protection for assets under certain circumstances but requires giving up much more control so this may not be your best choice if you want to be hands-on with continuing to manage and access your assets. Frank & Kraft will help you to understand the different kinds of trusts and decide which one is the best for you.
Waiting too Long to Make a Trust
Many people think they can plan for the future later, especially if they are still relatively young and healthy. Unfortunately, if you get sick or become incapacitated, it will be too late to make a trust and you’ll lose the chance to take advantage of the protections that a trust can provide.
Failing to Transfer Assets Into the Trust
When you make a trust, you have not actually protected any assets yet. You need to fund the trust by transferring assets into it. Frank & Kraft can help you with this process, including making decisions about what assets to transfer. Choosing to transfer assets into a trust can have financial consequences and can have other consequences as well if you are trying to transfer property you have a mortgage or loan on. You should make certain you understand both the full implications of transferring assets and the process of transferring assets so you can fund your trust appropriately.
Overestimating What the Trust Can Do For You
Another big mistake people make is thinking the trust they have created provides more protection than it actually does. For example, if you have created a living trust, you probably know that the assets in the trust transfer through the trust administration process instead of having to go through the probate process. This leads many people to erroneously assume that the assets that are held outside of probate won’t be part of their taxable estate. This isn’t true and the assets held in the trust could still be subject to estate tax if your estate is large enough.
Getting Help from Trust Lawyers
Trust lawyers at Frank & Kraft have extensive experience helping people with all different kinds of family and financial situations to make trusts that work to fulfill their needs. Our firm will work closely with you to identify what your goals are and to help you to decide if trusts or other legal tools are the best approach to achieving them. We can then help you with the formal process of creating a trust document or implementing other plans to protect yourself, your assets, and your loved ones.
To find out more about the services our compassionate and knowledgeable legal team can provide to you, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at 317-684-1100 or contact us online today to get your plans underway.
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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