A Revocable Living Trust Saved Us Thousands of Dollars
October 31st, 2010 Filed under: Executor Fees — Estate Planning Author
On September 11, 2008 we unexpectedly lost my father to a brain aneurysm. He was only 72 at the time. Needless to say we were in complete shock and bewildered about what to do. The last thing we needed to deal with during our grieving process was to struggle with the legal system to transfer his assets into my mom’s name. I was chosen executor of his estate many years ago. I felt a great deal of responsibility to take care of my mother and my siblings.
Thank goodness my father was a organized man who had done his due diligence. Ten years prior to his death, he took the time to set up a revocable living trust. I cannot emphasize enough how important that one document was to making my job as executor much easier. Their is a big misconception that having a will is sufficient for transferring assets to your beneficiaries. Unfortunately, all wills have to go through the process called probate. Probate is the validating of the will. This is done by a judge. The entire process can take any where from six months to two years. While a will is going through probate your loved ones have to wait for disbursement of funds. Ouch!
Another key point is you want to make sure your trust is revocable. That means it can be changed at anytime. Lets talk about how you save money for your loved ones with a living trust. Basically, you avoid the court cost, the attorney fees, and other court related fees; such as executor fees. These are the thousands of dollars that my father saved my mother by implementing his trust.
Where do you go to create your trust document? With the advent of the internet, I am sure their are many sites to help guide you through the steps. I wanted to deal with someone face to face so we went to our family attorney. You do not need a specialist, your attorney is more than capable of setting up the document. Another misconception is this is a expensive procedure. We paid $500.00 to have this done. Small potatoes compared to the legal fees involved during probate.
Proper estate planning is the ultimate gift you can pass on to your family. I realize we live in hectic times and it is very easy to put this step off to the side. Please don’t! Make a call to your attorney and set up a appointment to start the process. It will surprise you how painless it really is.
In summary, the most important estate planning document is by far a revocable living trust! No one knows when they will be called from this world. Open the newspaper any day and read about the tragic deaths that occur all over this world. Now is the time to pay it forward for you loved ones. One site I came across that was very helpful I have linked to this article. I hope it helps.
http://www.squidoo.com/revocablelivingtrust
