can a person make their own revocable trust?

[CRLLS]

I used Willmaker. And it is tailored to each state.

Full disclosure: While I only used the trusts to buy more ibonds, I haven't yet used them for anything else. Not sure that I will as the amount that we have outside IRAs and HSAs is not a lot.

I have used Nolo WillMaker for our wills also . I also bought their book on Wills before filling out the software. It was compliant with my state laws. I felt very comfortable using it and would not hesitate to use their RLT in the future. After seeing the multiple errors of fact made by lawyers in my MIL's estate papers, I felt very confident in rolling my own at least as well (or badly) as them. The bottom line is, nobody ever requested to see MIL's Will or Trust papers other than the heirs when settling her estate.

I guess it depends on how one might expect a potential heir might react. In our case and MIL's case, I expect there will not be any dramatics involved.

My advice is if you feel that you need a lawyer, you probably do.

 

[kgtest]

My phone bill had crept up to $48.25/line. Started a new plan for $30/line including taxes. Took 45min of negotiations and some series of holds to endure but I finally got the advertised rate, ufta.

My cable bill crept up to $93 because I was paying for TV and faster speeds then we needed. The increased speeds were actually causing me to go near the monthly data caps MANY months. So that problem is fixed with it being throttled to 300mb/s plenty. So now I am back to the $55/month plan.

Home Insurance, Car Insurance and registration all went down this year by like $50. Not a huge difference but better than rising. I don't think I'll be so lucky next year.

I am still adding up Internet, Phone, Garbage, Water, Sewer, Electricity for the year.

To me, looking at all these factors and seeing the % it increases is what matters to me right now. I call that my personal inflation rate.

I did add a life insurance policy but thats a fixed rate until I decide I have "enough." Just need to double my million, so I might carry the policy until I am 50.

Less free things these days. Seems there is a price to pay for everything. Or the free things to do are insanely high demand where it diminishes any quality of the experience.

With that said though, our budget is still getting along nicely.

We have to stop spending as much for a couple months though as I was underemployed and lost some capital earning opportunities.

 

[G-Man]

One home is TOD to the two kids when the second of us dies. Other home is an enhanced life estate deed so goes to the kids as remaindermen when the second of us dies. Both avoid probate and get a stepped-up basis under current law.

Vehicles are all jointly owned and would be covered by will if it happens that we die simultaneously. We can add TOD on one of our two vehicles and I need to do that. And if one of us dies then I'll title both cars with TOD to the kids.

All financial accounts are beneficiary designations... to spouse and two kids as contingent beneficiaries.

The main purpose of a trust would be to ensure that if I die first that our assets go to support DW for her remaining time and then to our two kids and prevent some gigolo from sweeping DW off her feet and benefitting with our assets to the detriment of our two kids. (And vice versa if DW dies first). While I don't think that would ever happen, there are horror stories out there to consider.

I had our estate planning documents created last year by an estate planning attorney. For the Transfer on Death (TOD) Deed for the primary residence, it points to the serving trustees of our trust as the primary beneficiary.

Not sure if this is a common practice when you have a trust. Maybe the estate attorney is making it more complicated than it needs to be.

 

[pb4uski]

A revocable living trust (that's properly funded) prevents your estate from having to go through probate. Because my mother-in-law had an RLT and her home and brokerage accounts were titled to it when she died last year, her heirs did not have to spend about $120K in probate fees. She and FIL also gave their kids and grandkids monetary gifts during their lifetimes, so having a trust does not prevent gifting.

FIL originally wrote the trust docs himself, and after he died, their daughter hired an estate attorney to update it. The attorney said FIL's trust doc was fine, if a bit over-complicated, so it seems the DIY version would have sufficed. Still, the attorney charged a lot less than $120K to simplify things and set up a new trust for MIL alone.

+1 DM and DF each had living trusts that I managed. DF passed in 2005 and his trust became irrevocable. The financial assets of the trusts were transferred to the beneficiaries of the trusts less than 30 days after DM's passing.

We just had each of the 5 beneficiaries establish accounts at Schwab and then, as trustee, I sent Schwab instructions on how to distribute the trusts positions in-kind and it was done in a couple days after I sent them the instructions.

And it didn't cost a penny.

Meanwhile, I've heard stories of how expensive and time consuming probate is... no thank you.

 

[pb4uski]

My phone bill had crept up to $48.25/line. Started a new plan for $30/line including taxes. Took 45min of negotiations and some series of holds to endure but I finally got the advertised rate, ufta.

My cable bill crept up to $93 because I was paying for TV and faster speeds then we needed. The increased speeds were actually causing me to go near the monthly data caps MANY months. So that problem is fixed with it being throttled to 300mb/s plenty. So now I am back to the $55/month plan.

Home Insurance, Car Insurance and registration all went down this year by like $50. Not a huge difference but better than rising. I don't think I'll be so lucky next year.

I am still adding up Internet, Phone, Garbage, Water, Sewer, Electricity for the year.

To me, looking at all these factors and seeing the % it increases is what matters to me right now. I call that my personal inflation rate.

I did add a life insurance policy but thats a fixed rate until I decide I have "enough." Just need to double my million, so I might carry the policy until I am 50.

Less free things these days. Seems there is a price to pay for everything. Or the free things to do are insanely high demand where it diminishes any quality of the experience.

With that said though, our budget is still getting along nicely.

We have to stop spending as much for a couple months though as I was underemployed and lost some capital earning opportunities.

Wrong thread?

 

[cathy63]

+1 DM and DF each had living trusts that I managed. DF passed in 2005 and his trust became irrevocable. The financial assets of the trusts were transferred to the beneficiaries of the trusts less than 30 days after DM's passing.

We just had each of the 5 beneficiaries establish accounts at Schwab and then, as trustee, I sent Schwab instructions on how to distribute the trusts positions in-kind and it was done in a couple days after I sent them the instructions.

And it didn't cost a penny.

Meanwhile, I've heard stories of how expensive and time consuming probate is... no thank you.

Since we live in a community property state and nobody had separate property, we never established an irrevocable trust when FIL died nor when my own Dad died. Our mothers just got a full step-up in basis on everything and we made sure they had their trusts updated to reflect that they were now the sole trustees.

It's taken much longer than 30 days to distribute MIL's trust due to the time it took to empty her home and get it sold; plus there's also one brother-in-law in Canada who only wants distributions in the first quarter for some Canadian tax reason (not sure he's getting good advice on that, but I'm not the successor trustee so whatever). It's going to be at least two years to get to the final tax return and possibly three, but probate wouldn't have gone any faster and it would have cost a lot.

 

[RetMD21]

......

I used 4Trust to create our estate plan, which is tricky in WA state with both estate tax and community property law, etc.....It was awesome. I hired an firm to represent me in a business sale and they reviewed our trust as it was recipient of lease payments and installments from the sale. There were no issues in what was prepared. I compared our trust docs with those done by lawyers, and I believe ours is better with citing specific statues to address the flexible transfer of the assets while preserving limited exemptions in WA state.......

It's not rocket science or surgery but it is something that one doesn't do often. I'm not sure that the average diy fan would take the time to understand the issues. For me it is like replacing the torsion spring on my garage door. I understand the concept of how it is done and I know there are some dangers if you screw up so I choose to hire someone.

 

[pb4uski]

Since we live in a community property state and nobody had separate property, we never established an irrevocable trust when FIL died nor when my own Dad died. Our mothers just got a full step-up in basis on everything and we made sure they had their trusts updated to reflect that they were now the sole trustees.

It's taken much longer than 30 days to distribute MIL's trust due to the time it took to empty her home and get it sold; plus there's also one brother-in-law in Canada who only wants distributions in the first quarter for some Canadian tax reason (not sure he's getting good advice on that, but I'm not the successor trustee so whatever). It's going to be at least two years to get to the final tax return and possibly three, but probate wouldn't have gone any faster and it would have cost a lot.

I should probably clarify that the 30 days was just the financial assets. In addition, there was a commercial rental that we decided to sell to a long term tenant and a lakefront summer home that we put into a LLC and the 5 of us will share getting 2 weeks of use each during the summer.