If I Have a Living Trust, Should I Also Have a Will?
Video Summary
If I have a living trust, should I have a will answer? The question is yes, those are called Pour- Over wills, meaning that your will says I leave whatever assets that I may have that are just titled in. I name to the trustee of my trust, the trust, then the trustee designates who the beneficiaries are, what I have found over my career that sometimes trust are set up and are fine and dandy. They designate who all the beneficiaries are, but for whatever reason, the assets of the decedent are not titled into the name of the trustee. And so there must be a probate proceeding to have the assets transferred to the trustee so they can be distributed to the beneficiaries. So without a will leaving it to the trust, well then the assets would pass to the children or the heirs of the decedent, which is probably not the same as the testament scheme or who you wanted to receive these assets as, as a result of executing a trust. So that is a real good reason to have a will. That leaves everything to the trustee and your trust upon your death in the event. So that any assets that you have in your name alone will go to your trustee to be distributed to your designated beneficiaries. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Trusts, Videos, Wills
Who Should I Choose as Trustee of My Trust?
Video Summary
Who should I choose as trustee of my trust? Whenever you’re doing estate planning and need to select a trust successor trustee to your revocable trust, you usually appoint a family member. That family member should have some business experience and be one that you believe that would want to treat everyone fairly and to follow your wishes and what you designate under the provisions of the trust. If you are dealing with a lot of money, over a million dollars you may want to consider designating a trust company or a bank with trust powers for them to administer the trust and invest the money so that they can continue to pay the money out for it. If you have a, uh, a trust where you simply want to have your assets distributed to the various beneficiaries, while that’s relatively simple to do, and, uh, family members should be able to, uh, take care of that and if they have any questions, you could direct them to contact the attorney who prepared the trust or can contact my office and I would be glad to give them some information and or, uh, represent them. As far as administering the trust, the trustee would be required to, uh, obtain a federal identification number for tax purposes. Since the trust, when it becomes your revocable, uh, becomes a taxpayer and an information return is required called a fiduciary tax return. And so I can give you some guidance as far as the, uh, federal ID numbers concerned, filing the inventory, the notice of trust and the public records and gentlemen, they represent you as far as, administering the trust and taking care of, following the wishes of the person who established the trust. If you have any questions about trust administrations, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
Can I Use My Parents Power of Attorney to Transfer Their Trust Assets?
Video Summary
Can I use my parent’s power of attorney to transfer their trust assets? The short answer to that is no. The reason is, is the power of attorney is given to the now called agent that used to be called a attorney. In fact, in their individual capacity, if they’ve titled particularly real estate and their name is trustee, then you must have the trustee sign the deed or transfer it in the trustee’s name. And if they’re not able to sign, you then need to have, the trust amended so that the successor trustee is then able to sign the documents or deed to transfer the title. But you cannot use a power of attorney, which has been executed by your parents and their individual capacity to transfer their trust desk sets. If you have a problem as far as transferring trust assets and they have a power of attorney, will give me a call at (727) 847-2288. Thank you.
When Do My Responsibilities Start as a Trustee?
Video Summary
When do my responsibility start as a trustee? Well, the first time it starts is if someone sets up a trust or either you or someone else and you’re named as the trustee, well then, your responsibilities start away. However, you do need to accept the responsibility as a trustee. The usual scenario is, is that your parents or a loved one has set up a revocable trust for estate planning purposes. And they say who they want to receive their assets and then they name who they wish to serve as the successor trustee. And that instance, we would need a death certificate, for the person who set the trust up, which has served as a trustee. And then I would have you sign an acceptance of trustee and obtain a federal identification number for the trust so that you could then act in their capacity and distribute the assets or sell the assets of the trust, uh, for the beneficiaries and then distribute those. So your responsibilities start whenever you’re named, either as the trustee or successor trustee. And the circumstances have changed as whereby the original trustee can no longer serve, whether due to incapacity or death, and then you have the option of signing an acceptance. If you don’t wish to serve as trustee, you don’t have to undertake those responsibilities. If you have any questions about your serving as a trustee a under a trust will give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
Is There a Minimum Value Required To Establish a Trust?
Video Summary
Is there a minimum value required to establish a trust? No, there is not, but I think a better question is what’s the purpose of setting up a trust? I do a lot of estate planning and many times, I have clients come in to see me and the reason they want to set up a trust is to avoid probate. And so that is certainly a legitimate reason to set up a trust but there are other means of avoiding probate other than setting up a trust. Some of the other reasons why you may want to set up a trust is in the event there is a special needs beneficiary that you wish to provide for and you can put that in your trust or free standing trusts. There’s also trusts that are set up for life insurance so that they are controlled in an irrevocable life insurance trust.
There is also a Medicaid trust to qualify you for Medicaid. So the big reason to set up a trust is look at the purpose of it and then determine whether or not you need to set it up. But there is no minimum amount that you need to put in many trusts provided that if there’s less than a certain dollar amount, such as 50,000 or $100,000, the trustee may go ahead and do away with a continuing trust rather than going through the [inaudible 00:01:41] continuing to administer it. Also, you need to take in consideration the cost of setting up a trust, which may outweigh whatever amount that you put into it. So if you have any questions about setting up a trust, well, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.