A few years ago, I figured that DW and I really needed to do something about our total lack of will or estate planning. We had been seriously remiss having waited so long! We set a goal to do it that summer. Started by getting Nolo Press books from the library, and read up on it. Even considered attempting to do it ourselves.
But I thought that route could end in a mess. You don't know what you don't know. Something could be overlooked. Or something may not be quite right, or unworkable. And it would not be discovered until it is used. And one or both of us would be dead by then, so no course correction! Could leave a big expensive mess for the next generation, and could create dissention. Nothing like money to tear people apart.
The reading up on it was worthwhile, as we could talk about it intelligently (at least I could back then, it's fading now). Got a recommendation for a lawyer who specializes in estate planning. Initial talk was free, we talked over the basics of what we wanted, and he pointed out different things and things to watch out for. We knew that we wanted a trust setup, Nolo Pess calls it an A-B Trust, another name is a Disclaimer Trust. This was in addition to a Pour-Over Will, POA's, Health Directives, etc. He took down names, relations, etc.
He sent us the draft documents... it was over 1/2" thick. When I started flipping through it, I thought "what an overkill". But I sat down to read through it, it took a couple of sittings to do so, I made notes on a tablet as I went along. I changed my viewpoint completely. It was really good. I saw what his purpose was... cover every eventuality. Leave no stone unturned, no outcome unforseen. No matter what, there was a defined path. It was incredibly thorough, covering many things we never thought of. To help me understand the trust creations and dissolutions, I created a flow diagram. That really helped me understand the trusts.
The few "mistakes" I thought I found in the draft, turned out to be special legal wording needed to make it stand up in court. In addition, the appropriate parts are written to the laws of our state.
Also included where copies of the text and what else I would need to send to mutual fund companies, etc. to change taxable investments to be in the Telly Family Revocable Trust. And the text and what else I would need to cajole/bludgeon mutual fund companies to use for our IRA's. This is important, as IRA's as you know are governed by the beneficiaries you list for them, and pass on thusly. But for the Disclaimer Trust to do it's tax-minimization routine, the trust agreement needs to be the benny.
All mutual fund co's we have were able to handle the taxable accounts and put them into the trust with no problem, they knew how to do it. But the IRA's were another story. One big mutual fund company took the text and trust and put it on file, and our beneficiaries for those funds now say "trust agreement on file" or something close to that as bennys for those IRA's. They did it right, no problem.
Vanguard was a real problem. No, they don't do it. Then yes they DO do it, send it to these people. No they don't, yes they do... after many phone calls stretching out over months, they agreed to do it. But then about 2 weeks later we got a special mailing from them saying that they DON'T do it. But weasel words between the lines to the effect that if our account was big enough, maybe they might. Thank you very much, Vanguard!
Even if you may think that your view today of how many $ your estate may have is not multi-million, think of the chart output of FireCalc, where some of the possible outcomes are way up there. I'd prefer not to have much of it just handed over to the feds as general revenue. And we cannot predict what the exemption will be in any future year. So a process that treats the surviving spouse and future generations the best is the way we went. It cost about $2k.
I think by doing all this, we also made sure that we didn't create a "Jarndyce and Jarndyce" situation!
