It has also been popular, with those who have assets, to do IDGT. An intentionally defective grantor trust is irrevocable, but another distribution tool for real property that has income and appreciation. Certainly depends on your situation.
our lawyer recommended NOT to do a trust here in Texas. Most all of our assets are TOD (including our home). He drew up a will to address the few minor assets left over.
On the other hand, my in-laws had a trust drawn up in another state. It costs them thousands of dollars, but they were told they would be doing us a favor. They have not been maintaining the trust. They have now moved here to Texas. So hardly any of their current assets have been signed over to the trust. I have tried to get them to update it, but they haven't yet. I am afraid it will be a nightmare for us eventually with assets in and out of the trust.
FWIW I've been using PDF Annotator for years. https://www.pdfannotator.com I have scanned my signature and uploaded it to PDF Annotator as a "rubber stamp" image that I can add to any PDF.... Seems odd that that one form is no longer fillable. I'm hoping that it is a glitch and there will be a fillable pdf available later. ..
We have a living trust. Main reason is to make it easier on heirs, avoid probate. When my parents died, their trust made life MUCH simpler for my sister and I.
+1
My ex and I formed a trust after her mother died. Her mother had a trust and it made everything so smooth and fast.
The way to think about it is that putting things in a trust has no benefit to you but is a gift to your heirs.
When my FIL passed; each of his 4 daughters had a trust setup for them. His estate wasn't subject to any tax; the trust agenda could have just been accomplished via beneficiaries (he only had 2 accounts). It added an unnecessary 365 days to settle the estate. Can't transfer from a trust account to an ordinary account; you need to setup a receiving trust account - plus lawyers.
I saw no benefit to him having set it up this way. I'm sure he thought it would protect things but they were protected by beneficiary and estate rules, anyway. RIP Bob
What you wrote is inconsistent with my experience. My mother recently died and we distributed the financial positions in her trust and in my Dad's trust to the trust beneficiaries in less than 30 days.
Each beneficiary set up a brokerage account with the broker (Schwab in this case) and then I provided Schwab with a document instructing them to transfer 20% of each position to each of the 5 brokerage accounts.
There were a handful of bond positions where the resulting holdings would be too small so I made a couple mid course corrections, but that was it... it was frightenly easy.
That's great. I do suspect just the executors interactions with the estate lawyer as slowing down things.
Having said that; did you see any advantage versus just a beneficiary designation? Plus, no you always have to have a trust account to transfer spending funds to, right?
Not really. We had two IRAs that had beneficiary designations and those were transferred within a month as well. We just provided them with a death certificate and each beneficiary set up two inherited IRA accounts (one traditional and one Roth).
We did have one issue in that at one point after we had all the accounts set up and provided them with the death certificate that they acknowledged that they had they said it would take 5-6 weeks to transfer the positions to the beneficiaries. I went balistic and teed off on the guy and told him that if it took more than 5-6 days that I would be making complaints to their regulators that they were slow-walking distributing the assets to the beneficiaries. After that he agreed to put us in for expedited handling and it was all done within a week.
We retained about $20k in a checking account in one of the trusts that has a rental property in it and we are deciding whether to keep or sell the rental property.
There were no significant expenses requiring "spending funds"... she had one credit card that she used and the assisted living fee for the month had already been paid so we'll get a small refund on that.
Our estate plan has no trusts, just beneficiary designations and enhanced life estate deeds for real property.
yes if you have a sizable assets in a IRA or 401k etc then you should have a trust. You tube living trusts and listen to at least 5 YouTube.
then go to freewill.com to do a free trust. Also lawdept.com or legal zoom.
then you can make final decisions from there.
IRA’s do not belong in a trust unless there is some special circumstance.
Thanks for the answer. So, you didn't see the need in your own estate to setup a trust. Guess that says it all.
our lawyer recommended NOT to do a trust here in Texas. Most all of our assets are TOD (including our home). He drew up a will to address the few minor assets left over.
On the other hand, my in-laws had a trust drawn up in another state. It costs them thousands of dollars, but they were told they would be doing us a favor. They have not been maintaining the trust. They have now moved here to Texas. So hardly any of their current assets have been signed over to the trust. I have tried to get them to update it, but they haven't yet. I am afraid it will be a nightmare for us eventually with assets in and out of the trust.
Do you guys have a trust? If so what kind? Why did you do it? What are the benefits and the cons? Did you do it before death?
Anyone do a special needs trust? If so why?
I just had a Enhanced Life Estate setup for my mom. She lives in Florida. Very easy and cost effective. I wanted to avoid probate in the future.No, I didn't. We were lucky that both Florida and Vermont have legislation that provides for enhanced life estate deeds aka Lady Bird deeds.. that are functionally like a beneficiary designation for real property.