Do You Need A Revocable (Living) Trust: Fill & Download for Free

For really easy to comprehend legal information that helps answer questions like this I go to the Articles on LegalNature's website.To help provide more information to answer your question I'd suggest you read:Advantages of a Living TrustIs a Revocable Living Trust Right for You? A revocable living trust can be changed and amended as needed.How Does a Living Trust Avoid Probate?Because I do believe a living trust is what you may be looking for, and it definitely is worth the time and effort for any size estate, no matter how small. But you can also read through some of the articles about wills as well.

Each manner of passing title has advantages and disadvantages. The most unique and greatest advantage provided by a living trust is that it provides for lifetime control of assets titled to the trust. If a spouse or single person is incapacitated it is ordinarily much easier to pass control to your chosen agent (successor trustee). Although this can also be achieved with a durable power of attorney, most financial institutions take one to two weeks of examination through their legal department before, allowing you to act using the power. They ordinarily allow a change in trustee over assets more quickly. A second advantage of a living trust is your ability to put controls over the use of your assets after you are gone to encourage good, or discourage bad, behaviour by your beneficiaries. A third advantage of using a revocable living trust is your ability to provide for beneficiaries who are disabled at the time of your death. A standby special needs trust within a revocable living trust can protect any public benefits your beneficiary is receiving and allow the inheritance you are passing to them to be used to augment their standard of living and not just pay for the basics. If you are in a community property state transferring title through a basic joint tenancy can cost you when the property is eventually sold by keeping you from receiving a full step up in your income tax basis after the first death. Depending on which state you live in, a living trust can also make a big difference in elder law benefits planning. A trust can allow it’s trustee to transfer assets to help preserve the financial legacy you might pass on to your children and may protect you house from Medicaid recovery after you die. Whether operation of law passage of assets or use of a living trust is better can also depend upon your age and lifestyle. When young and if you don’t do dangerous things and don’t have young or disabled children - relying on operation of law methods of passing title on death may be enough. I recommend that you find an experienced estate planning attorney (who also has experience in elder law planning if you are over sixty) and speak with them about your situation. Listen to their advice and pay for their time. Best wishes - Joel

I depends on whether your trust if fully funded (meaning all the assets have been transferred to the trust). If the trust is fully funded, there is no real action necessary. The ownership of the assets has not changed. The surviving spouse is usually made the new trustee of the trust and is given full power to handle the assets of the trust. You may need to do things like change signature cards at certain accounts but mostly you just continue on with the surviving spouse being the new trustee.