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.