The Living Trust Advisor
Everything You (and Your Financial Planner) Need to Know about Your Living Trust
Jeffrey L. Condon
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Living Trust Advisor
Everything You (and Your Financial Planner) Need to Know about Your Living Trust
Jeffrey L. Condon
About This Book
A comprehensive guide to living trusts, with expert financial and legal guidance
The Living Trust Advisor is an expert guide for both advisors and their clients on the complex process of establishing, living with, and maintaining a living trust. Written by renowned family inheritance attorney Jeffrey L. Condon, this book discusses the various aspects of this important document, and shows you how to manage a seamless transfer of assets to various beneficiaries. This new second edition has been fully updated and revised to reflect the extensive changes to the Estate Tax Law that have taken place since the initial publication, giving you the most up-to-date information and guidance on preserving your wealth and helping your heirs avoid estate tax liability. You'll develop a vision for your trust before you ever meet with an attorney or other key players, and learn how to establish and maintain a trust that remains rock-solid for your lifetime and beyond.
As the living trust has replaced the will as the primary means of settling after-death estates, clear guidance and current legal information is of utmost importance for advisors and clients alike. This book is a valuable resource for every stage of planning and execution, helping you ensure that you provide for your beneficiaries the way you intend.
- Know what to think about before your first meeting with a lawyer
- Establish and manage your living trust to carry out your wishes
- Identify potential inheritance problems and build solutions into the trust
- Distribute assets to future generations, and protect them after the transfer
Dealing with complex financial and legal issues while facing our own mortality is a difficult task, but making these decisions is critical to the future outcome of your estate. The Living Trust Advisor expertly guides you through the process so you can be confident that your wishes will be carried out.
Frequently asked questions
Information
The Fourth Quarter
Dying with Your Living Trust
CHAPTER 14
Distribution of Your Living Trust after Both You and Your Spouse Are Dead
Or,
The Inheritance Arena Is Not for the Fainthearted
Financial Advisor Alert
- There are no tanks rushing down the street forcing the successor trustee to make fast distributions. Nothing has to be done overnightânor can it be. While the Living Trust avoids the lengthy distribution delays of probate, the postdeath administration and distribution of Living Trust assets still involve care and deliberation.
- There are several matters that the successor trustee must attend to before making any distribution. These include inventorying the Living Trust assets, searching for documents evidencing creditors, commissioning appraisal reports of real property, ascertaining if any assets are not contained in the Living Trust, preparing the final income tax returns, and possibly preparing the federal estate tax return.
- The successor trustees must ascertain the total value of the Living Trust assets and nonâLiving Trust assets and subtract the debts, taxes, and administration expenses from that number. Perhaps there are thousands of dollars in noncovered medical expenses. Or maybe their parents incurred a large amount of outstanding credit card debt. Or there are past-due income taxes or property taxes. Then there are attorney fees to be incurred for services rendered in the distribution of the Living Trust assets. And accountant fees for the filing of the final and/or fiduciary income tax returns. Whatever those subtractions are, the resulting number is the net estate or remainder; and only when that number is ascertained does the successor trustee know the amount of each beneficiaryâs portion.
- Distributing the Living Trustâs bank and brokerage assets is not the simple process it used to be. In the olden days, the successor trustees gained access to the assets simply by showing the settlorâs death certificates and the portion of the Living Trust that names them as successor trustees. But these days, in light of all the post-911 bank regulations, the successor trustees will have to additionally show two forms of identification and the entire Living Trust document. Then, in most cases, the documents assembled will require scrutiny by the branch manager and the institutionâs legal department. About 10 days later, the successor trustees will be told that they cannot access the funds directly from the Living Trust accounts; rather, they must open new accounts in their names as successor trustees. Of course, a new Living Trust account requires a new taxpayer identification number, which you (or the accountant or attorney) will obtain. Once that new taxpayer identification number is received, the successor trustees must complete forms to open the new accountsâwhich will require your help, due to the numerous questions that the successor trustees donât have the wherewithal to answer. (âIs the Living Trust revocable or irrevocable?â âIs the date of the Living Trust the date that the amendment was signed?â âDoes the Trust give us powers to make investment decisions?â âWho are the settlors?â âWhatâs a settlor?â) When the new account is finally established, the assets from the old account must be transferred to the new account, which sometimes can take a while. After that entire maddening process, the successor trustees can access the accounts and make distributions in accordance with the Living Trustâs inheritance instructions.
The Grim Reality
- Your daughter, who loves her husband, puts his name on her inherited assets. As a result, your daughter loses all of her inheritance or one-half of her assets to your son-in-law after he files for divorce.
- Your financially overextended son loses his inheritance to his bankruptcy creditors.
- Your combative son engages in a legal battle with his siblings over some de minimis aspect of the postdeath Living Trust administration to even some personal score.
- Your daughter mismanages her share of the inheritance into the ground.
- Your compulsive gambler son liquidates his share so he can put it all on one spin on the green double-zero at the roulette table in Las Vegas.
- The board of directors of the off-brand charity you named as a beneficiary in your Living Trust uses its gift to buy a Cadillac for each board member.
- Your flower-child daughter hands over her entire share to the crazy cult in Santa Cruz in which she finally finds herself.
- One of your sons demands that his siblings give him a portion of their shares of the Living Trust assets because he perceives, whether justified or not, that he did not receive an equal share.
- Your normal son, who holds and manages your problem daughterâs share, is incessantly bombarded with demands from your daughter to give her money.