If you have always thought that you should use a last will as the document that will serve as the centerpiece of your estate plan, you may want to look into the benefits that you could gain if you use a living trust instead. You do not necessarily have to be a millionaire to create this type of trust, and you do not lose control of the assets while you are living.
A living trust is revocable, so you can dissolve the trust entirely if you ever want to do so and walk away with the assets in your direct personal possession once again. As the person who establishes the trust, you can act as the trustee throughout your life, so you control the actions of the trust even while you are alive and it is intact. You can also act as the initial beneficiary.
The point is to facilitate the distribution of inheritances to your loved ones, so you name a successor trustee to administer the trust after you are gone, and you also name successor beneficiaries.
Corporate Trustee
When you are creating the trust declaration, you could name a person that you know to act as the successor trustee. However, it is also possible to engage the services of a corporate trustee. Trust companies act as fiduciaries in this capacity, and banks with trust departments also handle trust administration tasks.
There are a number of reasons why you may want to use a corporate trustee. For one, if you use a person that you know, longevity can be a concern. Conflicts of interest could also enter the picture, and you may not know anyone who has the experience and expertise that it would take to effectively administer a living trust.
With a corporate trustee, you can be certain that the trust will be administered in accordance with professional standards, and there is inherent oversight within these companies. Longevity would not be a factor, because the company will always be there, and there will be no conflicts of interest.
Free Report on Living Trusts
We have provided some very basic information about living trusts and the role of the trustee in this brief blog post. If you would like to dig deeper, we have prepared a valuable resource that you can access through this website.
There is a virtual library full of highly informative estate planning and elder law reports on our site. You can access any or all of these reports free of charge, and one of the reports focuses on the benefits that living trusts provide.
To obtain your copy of the living trust report, click this link and follow the simple instructions: Free Living Trust Report.
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