Video Summary
Why would a Trust be a bad idea? Well, the first question I ask clients when they come to see me, they want to set up a Trust, is said, why do you want to set up a trust? The usual answer I get is because I want to avoid probate. Well, there’s alternatives to that, particularly if you want all your assets to be distributed at the time of your death to the beneficiaries. If that is the estate plan and the purpose of the Trust, that can be accomplished by how you title your assets. Just like your bank accounts, you can set those up so that they’re payable on death to the beneficiaries. Doesn’t have to go through probate. If you have your home, you can execute an enhanced life estate deed called a Lady Bird Deed works the same as a payable on death bank account. You have all the rights of ownership during your lifetime, but upon your death, it’ll go automatically. Go to the beneficiaries with a death certificate and avoid probate. If you have a brokerage account with say, Merrill Lynch or Raymond James or any brokerage account, you can then set that up so that there’s beneficiaries. That’s called a TOD designation, so those would automatically avoid probate and go to the beneficiaries. Also, your life insurance, annuities, IRAs, all of those have beneficiaries or should have beneficiaries, and so none of those go through probate. So if you don’t have a good reason to set up a Trust, that would be a reason why it would be bad to set one up because you’re basically just spending money that you don’t need to. In the past, Trust had been set up to avoid estate taxes, but estate taxes have been now elevated to you have to have assets over $13 million before there’s any estate taxes. So that would be the circumstance whenever I would not recommend, or I basically don’t draftTtrust if the person wishes their assets to be distributed at the time of their death and designated. Now, there are good reasons set up Trust, such as if you have minors and you want to delay the distribution of their money, or if you have a beneficiary that has a drug dependency or is a special needs trust. Any number of other good reasons set up trust. But if you just wish to do it, to avoid probate and you want an outright distribution, I think that’s a bad idea and save your money as far as the cost of setting one up. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.