What benefits does a trust offer?
Transcript
There sometimes is confusion among people who go in to see an attorney, do I want to have a will, do I want to have a trust, do I want to have both? What a trust does, is it’s a unique document that allows you to basically enter into an agreement with yourself. That agreement allows you to make certain specific bequests of items and things to people that you care about. It also is a mechanism whereby you can do tax planning, which you can’t do through a will. It gives you a mechanism whereby you can specifically state, this money is going to be allocated towards, for example, on a husband and wife case, this money is going to be allocated to the surviving spouse, and the other money is going to be allocated to the decedent. That allows the best way to make a determination in terms of the division of assets that will result in you having a maximum savings in terms of taxes and you get the assets distributed as quickly as possible. One of the nicest things about it is, the attorney that drafts this for you, should do it such that you don’t hae to go through probate which is very time consuming and generates a lot of attorney’s fees, which you want to avoid.
