Wills & Trusts

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What Are Wills?
Wills (your Last Will and Testament) are your instructions to the Probate Court on how and to whom to distribute your assets. Wills also to establish a guardian for your minor children, can describe your burial or cremation wishes (including a green funeral or green burial), and other basic desires.
Wills Do NOT Avoid Probate Court. In fact, wills MUST be filed in Probate Court in order to be legally binding. Wills are also public documents, and are thus open to challenges by relatives, creditors, and other people who feel they should get your assets.
What Wills Are Not
Wills are not able to manage your assets after your death. Wills are designed to gather your assets, pay your debts/creditors, and distribute whatever is left to your heirs. If an heir is 18 years old, he or she is entitled to receive their inheritance right away, even if the heir cannot handle the assets (from a maturity perspective).
What Happens to My Assets?
Probate Court is charged with paying your creditors. To do this, Probate Court will liquidate your assets, such as real estate, bank accounts, artwork, collectibles, and anything else it can pull into court. Probate Court will auction your home rather than sell it through a realtor, because the auction will happen faster than the uncertainty of selling the home on the open market. Your estate will get less for the home, and your heirs (your children, relatives, charities) will receive less. And the auction fees will be similar to a realtor's commission, so your estate doesn't even save money in fees.
Wills Can Be Appropriate
For some people, wills do enough to provide control to transfer their assets to their family or other heirs. However, your needs must be simple, and know (and accept) that your heirs will have full control over your assets upon your death. If you want control over your assets after your death, see the right column on Revocable Living Trusts.

For more information about Wills, call us at 623-298-4220 or email us.

What Are Trusts?
A Trust is basically a contract between the Grantor (the person who sets up a Trust) and the Trustee (the person or entity which manages the Trust). The wonderful feature of a Trust is that you can be very creative in how you plan for the distribution of your assets in the future.
Trusts DO Avoid Probate Court. Anything you put into a Trust does not go thorugh Probate Court, but is held in the Trust and immediately available to your Successor Trustee to manage and distribute according to the terms of your Trust. But that’s the key factor – you MUST transfer ownership of the assets to the Trust in order for the Trust to be able to manage the asset. If you don’t do this, your asset will not be governed by the Trust and may have to go through Probate Court upon your death.
What Trusts Can Do
Trusts allow you to be very creative with how you want to distribute your assets. You can select ages, percentages, specific assets, certain times, expenses paid for, prerequisites, or conditions to meet before any funds are distributed. For example:
Pay for children’s college tuition
Pay 20% down on child’s first home
Require a drug test be passed before   distributing lump sums to your beneficiaries
Name contingent beneficiaries, even charities
Exclude certain persons from your estate
How Long Do Trusts Last?
Trusts can survive as long as you have assets in the Trust. This can be generations, or just long enough to avoid Probate Court and pass your assets to your heirs quickly and easily.
Who is My Successor Trustee?
Your Successor Trustee is the person who steps in and manages the assets of your Trust when you are no longer able. So this person (or corporate trustee, like a trust company) should be someone you trust to make financial decisions and who knows how to manage assets. They may (and should) get professional advice, but the last thing you want to do is name as your Successor Trustee who really shouldn’t be in charge of your assets.

Similar to making a guardian decision, this person needs to be the right person. You should not name someone in your family just to avoid hurting their feelings or to make the politically correct decision. What is most important is to name the person who will do the best job and follow your wishes.

For more information about Trusts, call us at 623-298-4220 or email us.