Are you planning to draft a living trust? As long as you have an estate or assets, you should think of who will inherit them when you die. A living trust is usually an incredible tool because it helps avoid delays and hassles associated with the probate process. It's usually a powerful estate planning tool for anyone who doesn't want to go the probate way. Usually, a living trust is different from a will in several ways. First, it makes the administration process less daunting, meaning your beneficiaries can quickly get a share of their inheritance. But for the living trust to be more effective and reliable, here are three things you should do.
List Everything You Own
Drafting a living trust before you list everything you own can be a great mistake. You may face a lot of challenges if you make or draft one without including all you have. So you should know all the tangible and intangible assets you own. Most people just focus more on cars, land, and houses. However, even other assets like life insurance, jewelry, bonds, and stocks should be accounted for and included in the living trust. It's usually hard to plan your estate or even decide how it will be distributed if you don't know what you own.
Prepare the Necessary Paperwork
Creating a living trust is usually daunting because of the tedious paperwork involved. Dealing with paperwork involving stock certificates, deeds, and titles can be tricky. For this reason, you should seek help from a competent trusts attorney because they understand the intricacies of the trust process. In most cases, you will not proceed with the other phases of the living trust preparation before completing all the necessary paperwork. And since handling paperwork alone is never easy, you should let your attorney help you handle it.
Name Your Beneficiaries
You definitely want to leave your hard-earned estate and assets to someone. But did you know that a slight mistake when naming the beneficiaries can cause a lot of problems? For instance, spelling mistakes and wrong names could make your living trust ineffective during estate administration. That's why you should carefully choose and name your beneficiaries. In fact, you should also seek legal help where necessary to avoid problems. Most people only think of their children and close relatives when naming beneficiaries. However, you could also name charities, organizations, and friends as beneficiaries in your living trust. You just first need to discuss it with your lawyer to help you make the right decision.
Share22 August 2022
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