Full Version: Trust accounts/estate planning
From: Cindy (CINDYM) [#1]
29 Mar 2007
To: ALL
Hi all - we've recently been looking in to redoing our wills and went to a seminar about estate planning. I thought this might be of interest to some of you in regards to making sure your assets and business doesn't get hit too hard should you pass away.
At the seminar, they discussed the difference between probate and trust accounts. I must say I don't know why anyone would not have a trust, but there are instances where a trust would not work for you.
We found out that our kids would end up paying over $80,000 in probate costs and at least $40,000, if not more, in taxes in settling our estate if we both died. I was shocked. Had no idea about any of this.
We made an appointment with an estate planner after the seminar to see about setting up a trust. It would cost us about $3,000 to have him set one up. So then I was looking in to the trusts a bit more and was reading on nolo.com about trusts and saw that they said you really don't need an attorney to do the will or trust. You can do it yourself and it is completely legal and will hold up. The reason the trust is so expensive to set up, and the will so inexpensive, through an attorney, is that the attorney will recoup his costs when he does the probate on your estate. With the trust, there really isn't any other way he can recoup his costs, so he has to charge more for the trust work. Nolo.com recommends Quicken Willmaker Plus for putting together your will and trust, power of attorney etc. They offer it at the nolo.com site, but I found it through Costco on-line for $34.99 + shipping.
So far, with the Quicken software, I've set up a new will, a medical directive, a financial power of attorney, and a combined trust. It has been easy, and the greatest thing is that I have been able to fill out the forms, think about it overnight, come up with something I might have forgotten about, and go back in and make changes.
We'll be taking our forms in to be notarized this week, and then we start transferring all our assets in to our trust. This is where the trust part is so cool. The software even provides you with the certificates you will need to provide to your bank, DMV etc to transfer titles to the trust account.
Everything we own, either with a title or something like our businesses, we put in the trust name. Should we both die, the trust just flows to our kids without having to go through probate or taxes. From what I have found out talking to others, it is pretty seamless when you have a trust compared to going through probate.
Has anyone here set up a trust, and what do you think? Has anyone had a trust and dismantled it because it didn't work? Why didn't it work? Anyone know more about this process?
This is new territory for us, but our old wills (written in 1982) sent our kids to Canada to live with my brother and I don't think they would like that much right now, since they are 25 & 26 and have careers down here in the states:) It was time to update the wills, and it just morphed in to all this other stuff.
Cindy M
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#2]
29 Mar 2007
To: Cindy (CINDYM) [#1] 29 Mar 2007
Suze Orman also has a living trust kit, which covers all the aspects of establishing a living trust. Comes on CD and walks you through all the steps.
I still have to set it up. :-$
My dearly departed in-laws had a living trust, which made the handling of their estate effortless and hassle-free.
None of us want to think about our mortality, but as you've described, not having a trust in place, will make the lives of our heirs an expensive and convoluted mess.
From: Cindy (CINDYM) [#3]
29 Mar 2007
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#2] 29 Mar 2007
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#4]
29 Mar 2007
To: Cindy (CINDYM) [#3] 29 Mar 2007
I think many people feel they don't have much to leave.
Once a person starts rounding up their property, mutual funds and other assets, they usually have more than they thought.
From: Cindy (CINDYM) [#5]
29 Mar 2007
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#4] 29 Mar 2007
I think there is a couple of things going on - people don't like to think about dying and they don't think they have much of value to warrant a trust - that's for the very wealthy families, not us normal folks.
We were so surprised to find out how much our farm is valued at compared to what we purchased it for 10 years ago - let's just say that I'm scared now that our kids are going to assist us to go before our time:)
And now we have the place in town, plus the value of the business. Then you start adding up your vehicles, any other off road type vehicles or hobby stuff, livestock, personal collections like coin or stamp etc and other valuables you have around and it comes to a substantial amount.
After we wrote everything down - and this took over a week of walking around our house, checking the safety deposit box, waking up in the night remembering something we overlooked - we were really surprised at how much we have. And we live a pretty minimalistic(sp??) lifestyle compared to everyone we know.
When we had it all down and calculated, and then figured out what would happen if we just had a will and things went through probate, that just went against every Scottish drop of blood in both our veins:)
The software makes it so easy to do too. You just plug in the answer to what it asks and when it is all finished up it looks so legal and has all the right wording in the right places.
Cindy M
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#6]
29 Mar 2007
To: Cindy (CINDYM) [#5] 30 Mar 2007
Thank you for raising this topic of high importance.
From: Laser Image (LASER_IMAGE) [#7]
29 Mar 2007
To: Cindy (CINDYM) [#5] 30 Mar 2007
Cindy,
I would still consider having an attorney look over the document you end up with from your program. Call me when you get a chance and I can refer you to the one I used to setup our wills - he is an honest guy and won't "find problems" just to run up your bill.
Gary
From: Cindy (CINDYM) [#8]
30 Mar 2007
To: Laser Image (LASER_IMAGE) [#7] 30 Mar 2007
From: Cap'n Ron (RONSTROWGER) [#9]
31 Mar 2007
To: Cindy (CINDYM) [#8] 2 Apr 2007
Cindy,
Congratulations on your trust! Brenda and I have had one in place for our family for about fifteen years now. While I agree no one wants to think about the inevitable, it will happen. I have seen many go from my work in the fire/ems field, and it is sad to here how many local citizens and friends or family have paid thousands to the government. You probablly will not have to many problems with the box version of trust documents, but proceed carefully. I used two different trust lawyers that cost more then a few thousand, but my father-in-law was a little sceptable after my two years of convincing him he needed one. He was paying anyway. It is very comforting to know that somethings will not be a burden in an already sorrowful time.