I am still young, at least I fool myself into believing such. Thinking about my eventual passing is not a favorite subject of mine. However, as the saying goes, two things for certain in this life are death and taxes. Hence, I can’t ignore my way out of it, especially since I have a wife and two minor children. Taking care of my family can’t just be a priority while I am alive, but also when I pass. Doing so, however, makes me nervous along with how to go about doing it. Do I need an attorney, a financial planner, a doctor, a banker, a yogi shaman?
I searched for such words as Wills, planning after death, etc. I discovered that I just did not need a Will, but rather a living trust. I own a house, that can be subject to probate, which is a different road to travel, and we have all heard the horror stories about probate. I also found out I can go through probate even when I am alive if I ever become incapacitated. Probate can be expensive and eat up money that should go to my family. So, now I am really apprehensive. What exactly do I need, and more importantly, how do I set it up? How much is it going to cost? What do I need to do? At this point, I am really not feeling much better, as not only do I not want to think about my death, but how do I even start setting up an estate plan?
Thankfully, I was referred to the National Association of Family Services and found out it is not even close to being as difficult as I thought. I do need the “basics”; a Will and Powers of Attorneys. But, I have probateable assets (my house, banking accounts, investments) and learned from the attorney I also need a living trust. That sounded intimidating. But surprisingly, it turned out I was worried about nothing. With the assistance of the attorney, it wasn’t that hard.
I learned that a living trust would avoid probate for my assets. I just needed to decide how I wanted it set up. For my attorney consultation, my wife and I needed to decide who we wanted to handle our affairs when we both passed, called the successor trustee. My children would be the obvious choice, but they are still minors. So, we went with my children’s godparents, at least until my children are old enough. We also had to decide how our assets would be distributed, which was easier; both my children will share everything equally. We did want my wife’s jewelry to go to our daughter and my watches to go to my son, which was also easy to set up. The whole consultation with the attorney was less than 30 minutes.
We needed to make sure we provided the addresses to our real properties (we have a rental also). That basically was it. I was told that we need to have a deed prepared for each property that would actually transfer the properties to the trust. This was a little bit of a concern for me as the properties would no longer be owned by me and my wife. But, I was informed my wife and I would retain complete control over all our assets while we are alive, and that the property being in the trust name would not affect that; it would almost be as if the trust didn’t even exist. And, most importantly, I can take it out of the trust any time, if we ever wanted to do that.
The attorneys took it from there. Once the attorney did their thing, we just had to review the documents to make sure it was set up the way we wanted, and then set up an appointment for signing the documents before the notary. For the notary, we only needed to schedule about 15 minutes of time for the appointment. We also needed to have a current valid identification, in which we just used our driver’s licenses. We then signed the documents.
Afterward, we had to do a few things. We had to make sure the deeds got recorded with the county (the attorney took care of this for us). We had to make sure our bank account was in the trust’s name. Then we just had to get our successor trustees a copy of our estate plan, and review our wishes with them. I also have a small business held in an LLC, but that was easily taken care of by doing an “assignment”, that was also prepared by the attorneys.
We are all nervous about the unknown, or things we are not familiar with. Setting up our living trust was no different, but now that we went through the process, it really wasn’t that bad. We used a company that understood our apprehension and walked us through it. Basically, all we needed to do was to decide who we wanted to handle our affairs, who gets our stuff, and the addresses to our properties to prepare the trust. Then we needed to sign the documents, and afterward, just make sure we “funded” our trust, meaning transfer those assets that normally would have to be probated. All funding meant was for us to record our property deeds and notify our bank. That was it.
We have all heard the horrors of probate, the costs, the attorneys taking most of the money. We also have heard it takes years sometimes to even get the money out of probate and to our children. By taking less than an hour of total time, we were able to create our living trust, and at least have peace of mind that in case anything happens to my wife and I, my kids will not have to deal with the difficulties of probate. I can’t avoid death and taxes, but I can avoid probate.
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This area of the website is for informational purposes only. The content is not legal advice. The statements and opinions are the expression of the author, not of the National Association of Family Services, and have not been evaluated by the National Association of Family Services for accuracy, completeness, or changes in the law.
