Wills and trusts that can be interpreted four different ways by as many people,

Be they laymen ,lawyers , arbitrators or family are the source of great angst and tumultuous actions.

Many a relationship have been ruined by lazy and incompetent paperwork.

By doing it wrong, you are the way that gets all the blame.

Doing nothing would be much more beneficial in a lot of cases.

Oh my, do you actually have experience as an executor of a will or as trustee of the living trust of a deceased family member?

I am so grateful that my mother, when she realized that her abilities were fading, encouraged me to get a good estate planning attorney and set up a trust. I would have been at a loss without that structure and the support of the attorney.

As for our immediate family, we have a living trust; it has been amended once and will need to be again, but it provides the legal structure for minimizing estate taxes among other things.

That's one reason to have a lawyer involved on the front end.

Two of my siblings are interpreting moms trust one way that benefits their kids and grandkids .

The kids ( moms grandkids )
And their kids (moms great grand children )

Are not mentioned in any way in the trust.


It's gone from splitting what is left , between two people to dividing it nine ways .

A lawyer drew the effen thing up based on moms wishes.

They needed to get a second opinion, prior to finalizing any damn thing.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Oh my, do you actually have experience as an executor of a will or as trustee of the living trust of a deceased family member?

I am so grateful that my mother, when she realized that her abilities were fading, encouraged me to get a good estate planning attorney and set up a trust.
<snip>

Yeah. My financial guy set up a meeting with him, an attorney that specializes in wills, a senior guy from the Trust department of my bank, and me. I now have a solid Trust, and my legatees ought to be damned glad of that. I’m glad of it too – a load off my mind.

Could you give us an example of exactly what you’re talking about? What you’ve described is something that no lawyer would allow to happen, and even an online easy tool would not unless you really forced it to.

I mean, the actual language, not just your or somebody else’s interpretation of how it is miraculously become complicated.

Or maybe you’re just hypothesizing?

Mine was last rewritten by an estate attorney JHE recommended. It's crystal clear and if anybody misinterprets it they're intellectually dishonest.

Not w/o printing up the trust document,


I am seeking some legal aid come Monday ,
To see if I am way the hell off base.

As I know very little to nothing about the subject ,
It wouldn't surprise me if they called me a nut job.

And update it when things change.

I’m aware of a man who was otherwise in decent health and after a few years became estranged from one of his 2 children. The other child’s spouse is a financial advisor and trustee of the trust. They had an appointment for the next week to meet with trust attorney to cut the estranged child out and before the meeting he unexpectedly dropped dead of a heart attack. The trust was as it was originally set up and the estranged child got their half. Which after selling a house in the Bay Area and liquidating everything was quite a large check.

ElToro,
Thanks for the reminder. We do need to make some amendments and have a special needs trust set up.
I’m worried also about what worsening of fed estate tax laws will take place if the Kamaklysm occurs.

A competent lawyer in your state is what’s needed to do not just a will but health care POA, living will and anything else.
State law varies and what’s best in one location may not be best in another.

Where I live, a trust for a straight forward estate is often a needless complication. Blended families, large inheritances can change that.

My trust will have not only estate related but will have a medical PoA, a financial PoA as well as an executor and none of the three can be the same person

Competent attorney is the key. I once had an attorney draw up simple wills for my wife and I, and they were written pretty much in Ebonics. I refused them.

" drawn up in my state" brings up another question.


They all live in Iowa and I am across the river in Illinois.

How much does that matter , I wonder?

Laws differ from state to state. I used an estate attorney in my state. That is best.

Just completed our trust and it was a painless process except now the real headache begins. Until the trust is funded, it's just a bunch of papers. Reading over the instructions there's a bunch of work needing for us to do.

quote:

Originally posted by RogB:
Just completed our trust and it was a painless process except now the real headache begins. Until the trust is funded, it's just a bunch of papers. Reading over the instructions there's a bunch of work needing for us to do.

Don't stop now!

My grandfather and his 2nd wife never transferred assets into their trust, and it cost my family tens of millions. After he died, she changed her will to exclude all of his children. I don't know how she slept after doing that, as it was his money.

It isn't really all that hard to move the assets. Banks may ask for a copy of the trust. Re-titling your home may require your lawyer. A Pour Over will should be created which says that anything not in the trust is to be moved into the trust when you pass. Retirement and life insurance accounts may be as simple as going online to change the beneficiary to be your trust.

Follow through!

Follow through indeed. My mother set up a trust and moved all assets over there for ease of transfer and avoiding cost and hassle of probate.

Except, she didn't. There was one brokerage account where she sent paperwork requesting move but it never was completed. After her death it didn't matter whether she or her attorney was to blame, either way we were opening a probate just for that. What a PITA.

Also remember to use for every single thing you buy that has title or designation of ownership going forward or you undo all the work and expense you've just taken on.

Even an explicit statement will be read as vague. The Constitution literally says "Shall Not Be Infringed" and people still screw that up.