My wife and I are in a situation similar to the OP, with no kids and no family (well, no family suitable to act as our successor trustee). Our trust "adventure” started in June of last year with me reading several books about trusts (Nolo and Dummies). Then we started engaging two large financial institutions trust departments.
We first considered Fidelity as trustee and it was not a good experience. We found it astonishing how poorly they engage with would-be customers. They would not tell us what language needed to be in the trust documents. Instead, they wanted us to draft the trust, send it to them, and then make the changes they require to it. I thought that would require too much of a costly back and forth. Schwab was next on the list for us. That experience was also very disappointing. We gave up on them, despite their being less expensive than Fidelity.
One thing to keep in mind with both of them is that they charge an administration fee for the trust, and they require that they manage the investments in the trust which is another 1%. This may not be too bad if the trust will be emptied quickly. But if you and your spouse are both incapacitated, or one spouse passed and the remaining spouse is incapacitated, then they as trustee will take over when you are not able to take care of your assets. You could be incapacitated for several years and they would be investing your assets as they see fit during that time and charging the trust admin fees and the investment management fees.
By September we felt our only option was to use a local estate planning firm as successor trustee and our agent with POA. We contacted a few attorneys and met for interviews. We settled on a small firm about 45 minutes from our home and had a 60 minute meeting with them to go over the forms they had asked us to fill out regarding our final wishes. We then paid $6,100 up front for a pour-over will, healthcare directives, durable POA, and the trust document. They were the second-most expensive of the attorney’s we considered.
Four or five weeks passed and they sent us drafts. All in, about 140 pages to read. And yes, we did read them all. That took us two weeks to get through. It seems like our draft is entirely "canned". We don't see much of how they incorporated any of what we originally asked for. So much legal jargon and contingency branches that we grew frustrated and quite depressed. This resulted in several pages of questions and potential changes to the documents so I called the attorney and asked how much time they allowed (as part of our $6,100) for review, questions, etc. Shocking that they only allow one hour of unpaid follow-up. Everything else is billed at the attorney’s hourly rate and there was no option to discuss our concerns with their paralegal who is less costly per hour.
I asked how an hour could be considered enough time and they said that most of their clients do not read the documents. They just sign them and go on their way. I questioned this and they said we were very unusual in that we read and wanted to understand the trust. They said most clients do not even ask for a draft to read before they come in to sign the docs! Since we had been planning to give them immediate durable powers of attorney and make them our successor trustee, it seemed prudent to understand how we were handing over our assets and final care to them. But now we are the troublemakers for them because we have a list of questions and changes.
And speaking of changes, they don’t want us to make changes and even said the much of the document content can not be changed.
The earliest appointment we can get to visit and discuss is late April which is aggravating to the highest degree. We’ve had to learn so much about this whole process and waiting 7 weeks means we’ll have to refresh ourselves on so much of it. We’ll need 10 hours here at home just to re-review the trust and our questions so that we can effectively use the time in their office.
So now we are regretting this big time. And we have spent a lot of time thinking about asking a family member to act as POA and successor trustee. This person is ill-suited for this endeavor. Being a trustee is not easy and there is a Nolo guide written specifically to help trustees, and it starts by explaining how hard it is to do and how much consideration much be given before accepting the role. But we are starting to think that it is a better option than offering the role to this estate planning firm. After all, our family member could and should use the estate assets to pay for a competent attorney, accountant, etc to help administer the trust when the time is right.
So I suspect that by the time we finish this, a year will have passed since we started. It will have been a year of life lost. Twelve months spent thinking about dying and incapacity is a depressing year. Then add on the thoughts of getting treated poorly by an attorney.
I wish you well.
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