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3 Reasons To Have A Trust In Your Estate Plan

24 March 2015 by Louise Boyd

Many people who create an estate plan wonder if they need to create a trust. Some people think that a will should be enough. However, in most cases you are not protected as well as you should be if you only have a will. Instead, the best way to ensure that your family gets your money, and gets it fast, is to have a trust. Here are 3 of the benefits of having a trust.

1. The Courts Don't Have To Execute It

One of the major downsides of a will is that it will have to go through a process called probate. This means that the courts oversee the execution of a will. Even if the will is not disputed, the will must go through probate. In some cases probate can take a good deal of time.

Additionally, most people don't like the courts having to oversee the whole process of your assets and distribution. When you have a trust, you can bypass this process called probate. The person who is named the trustee is in charge of overseeing the division of the property and the assets. This means that you have more privacy and it makes it easier for the trustee to do their job, without the courts interceding.

2. Get Your Money Faster

One of the best things about a trust is that it becomes immediately effective when you die. Instead of having to get clearance from the courts, or get the estate sorted out and organized, everything will just be divided equally among the beneficiaries.

Say you have three children and you name all three children beneficiaries of the trust. Upon your death the trustee would start to divide the assets. Anything that was liquid would immediately be given to the beneficiaries, such as bank accounts. Then anything that wasn't liquid, like the house, would be sold and the proceeds from the house would be divided equally. This is all done quicker than a will, and upon your death.

3. Save Money

There are special provisions put in place in a trust that protects it from some of the estate taxes. This doesn't mean that you won't owe any estate taxes, but you could save a good deal of money on it.

In addition, because you don't have to go through probate, you can save money in legal fees. In some cases, a good deal of the estate can be spent when you have to probate an estate. This is why having a trust is such a good idea, because you don't have to go through the expensive process of probate.

These are just a couple reasons why you should have a trust. 

Contact a probate attorney's office, such as Gruber & Associates, PC, for more information and tips.

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