FEEDING YOUR TRUST
By Tim Barkley. March 2013. Now that you've set up your living trust, you need to feed it to make it grow. In legal parlance, you need to “fund” your trust. The benefits of a living trust – probate avoidance, privacy, efficiency, estate tax avoidance – may be lost if you do not take the time to fund your trust and maintain it. “Funding” your trust means transferring title to your assets to your trust. Funding also includes making your trust the primary or contingent beneficiary of your retirement and insurance assets. Please note: the discussion here is general in nature, and not tailored to your specific situation. Seek professional counsel! You may recall from our last article that when you set up a living trust, you control the trust...
REVOCABLE LIVING TRUSTS
By Tim Barkley. February 2013. One of the most commonly employed planning tools on today’s estate planner’s workbench is the revocable living trust. Revocable. Living. Trust. Separate ideas rolled into one planning tool that might be right for you. A TRUST is a separate legal entity, like a business. Just like you might set up a corporation and control the corporation as sole shareholder, in the same way you can set up a trust and retain control of the trust as Trustee. You decide when you give up or share control – at your death or incompetence, or upon resignation as Trustee – and how to exercise your control over your trust. Some clients have unpleasant or uncomfortable reactions when first introduced to the idea of a trust. “Does that...
END-OF-YEAR PLANNING 2012
By Tim Barkley. December 2012. With each new year comes a new opportunity to consider your estate plan and make sure it is up-to-date – or to make one if you don’t have on already! Because we are time-bound mortals, the change of seasons reminds us of changes in our lives and of their fragility. Have you ever drafted documents at all? If not, you should know that the State’s choices on your behalf are not usually the best ones for you or your loved ones. That should not come as a surprise, but if you fail to plan, you have made the government's decisions your own. Can you find the originals of your documents? Could your family find them? If the originals of your documents cannot be found after your death, your plan will be for naught, and...