Regardless of your current life situation, a living trust is an estate planning option you should consider. An estate planning or probate attorney can provide guidance in deciding if this tool is right for you. The quick guide below can help you understand how this asset management tool can serve your long-term financial goals. 

What Probate Attorneys Can Tell You About Benefits of Living Trusts 

What are the Types of Living Trusts?

Living trusts can be revocable or irrevocable. A revocable trust allows you to serve as its trustee, change its terms and add or remove property or beneficiaries from it. However, once you create an irrevocable trust, you give up certain property control rights and cannot change the beneficiaries.

What are the Benefits of Having a Living Trust?

As with other trusts, living trusts let you maintain privacy because the assets and beneficiaries are not matters of public record. Irrevocable living trusts can protect assets from creditors and ensure your children receive what you have established for them. You can keep assets in the family if divorces or remarriages occur. 

When you pass away, the property in your living trust passes to the named beneficiaries without going through probate, which saves them time and doesn’t drain the estate’s finances. Individuals and married couples with irrevocable trusts may reap financial savings by reducing or postponing tax liability.

If you are the trustee of a revocable living trust and become incompetent, the trust becomes irrevocable. A successor trustee will manage the property for your benefit. They won’t have to experience the expense and delay of applying for appointment as a conservator or the burden of court supervision. 

 

 

Before deciding to create a living trust, look to My Legal Team, Inc. of Los Angeles, CA. They provide affordable services for individuals who don't have attorneys of their own, offering legal consultations across an array of fields, including estate planning and probate. Visit their website to learn about their full range of services. To discuss your situation with an experienced estate planning or probate attorney, call (562) 479-0900.