If you do decide on a trust, you can avoid a lengthy probate process. Another frequently underrated reason is the added privacy a trust offers.
When you use a trust, you bypass probate, a lengthy legal process that validates your will, and you leave precise, legally binding instructions for how to distribute and potentially maintain your assets. Have a beneficiary with special needs who’s ill equipped to manage the inheritance? Bequeathing complex assets that require ongoing attention after you’re gone?…
What is a Heggstad Petition? Drafting a trust and funding it (changing title to your assets to the name of your trust) is a multi-step process. If a person fails to fund or title his/her property in the name of the trust during his/her lifetime the “Heggstad Petition” (named after a decedent in the case)…
Our probate calculator may help you determine how much probate will cost, and how much you could save by having a living trust.