Most people know that Revocable Living Trusts are a great way to avoid probate. And if you don’t, please read a previous blog about probate and how a trust can help here. On today’s blog post, Crain & Skillern is going to discuss other ways to avoid probate if you already have a trust, or simple solutions if you have a small estate.
First of all, we’ll say it one more time for emphasis – Get A Revocable Living Trust. I know that you’ve already been told this by our attorneys, and possibly other attorneys, but it is a very simple way to avoid probate (and probate is generally much more expensive than a trust!). If you do not have a trust, and you own anything when you die, your estate will be probated, and your estate will have to hire a probate attorney. This includes if you die with a will or not. A will is a good idea if you absolutely cannot afford a trust, since it helps move the probate process move faster. However, if you want your family to avoid probate altogether, you need to set up a living trust.
After you get a trust, you will need to fund it. The attorneys at Crain & Skillern help you fund your trust, so that you are not wasting your money. A trust is only good if it is funded, otherwise a trust is just a pile of documents without any meaning. However, if you do not follow our instructions, or you get a trust done from an attorney who does not fund his/her client’s trust, then you will need to find your trust. Funding includes transferring all your real and personal property into the trust’s estate, or “corpus.” Essentially, it is making sure your bank accounts, financial accounts, home and land, and any other property is transferred into the trust. You can opt to transfer your property into the trust on your own, but our clients often rely on the services of our attorneys to be confident that all probate-able property is properly titled in the name of your trust.
Next, you will need to make sure that all your retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities, and any other assets have beneficiaries named. This can help you whether you have a trust or not. One thing to make sure, if you do not have a trust, is that you do not have your estate as your beneficiary. If you place your estate as your beneficiary, without a trust, that property will need to be probated, and if you just named a person, the money would have passed outside of probate. Another thing to make sure that you have multiple contingent beneficiaries in case one of your beneficiaries dies before you do, and you forget to change it or are incapable of changing it. If you have your estate, no beneficiary, or a deceased beneficiary on any of these accounts, then your heirs will have to go through probate court (and all that’s involved with that) to gain access to these assets. One more small note is to make sure none of your beneficiaries are under the age of eighteen. Otherwise, the bank or institution will hold that account until they reach this age, or you will have to get a conservatorship over the minor to gain access to those funds before they reach 18.
Another thing you can do is to make sure nothing is payable to your “Estate,” as referenced above. Many families have to go through probate because the nursing home refused to write a refund check (after death of a resident) to anyone other than the “Estate of Resident.” Like said above, this would require this refund check get probated through the courts to get received by the heirs. To avoid probate, make sure the nursing or assisted living facility will make any refund check payable to a surviving heir or your trust account, if you have one.
One really important step that clients often forget is that they need to put the later acquired property into their trust. If you purchase a home or other asset later in life, you have to put it in the name of your trust. Or if you open a new bank account, open the account in the name of your trust . It’s steps like these that will make your estate get probated, even if you have a trust.
Some of these steps above can be done if you have a trust or not. For example, putting beneficiaries on accounts can be done by someone who does not have a trust, and can make their probate process move much quicker. Getting a will is also a good idea if you cannot afford a trust, since it will also speed up the probate process. Contact the attorneys at Crain & Skillern, pllc to discuss your estate planning needs today.
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In September of 2010, a non-lawyer wrote an article about her experience trying out four different will-making computer programs. This article appeared in the New York Times. After she got all four different wills drafted, she took the wills to an established estate planning lawyer in New York City, and had them reviewed. The results were poor, to say the least. The lawyer found that one of the Wills was so defective that it did not even identify which heirs got which of the author’s assets. Each of the other three wills had different problems, including problems that could harm the probate process. The attorney stated, “The thing that most surprised me is how different your will comes out depending on what program you pick.” Some of the more common problems with the online-made wills include:
