Frequently Asked Questions
The below questions are commonly asked regarding our services; however, to identify even more potential questions or concerns, please download our free Trust Needs Assessment Guide to gain the answers you seek. We are also happy to chat with you about your concerns during our free consultation.
I'm not rich, why do I need a trust?
Trusts are no longer the sole territory of the rich. Recent tax law changes, evolving legal paradigms, and technology advancements have made estate planning with trusts the norm for the average family.
Our revocable living trust product offering will help keep all assets in your name, under your control and freely available to be changed at any time by you online.
Our revolutionary online Funding Kit will help avoid the tedious and time-consuming procedures of having to retitle of your assets to your trust for trust-funding purposes. We handle all this with our live, close support Client Management Service (CMS) team.
Examples:
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A Medicaid qualifying trust can help protect the home of a senior from seizure by the state when they can no longer afford to pay for long-term care
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A trust-controlled stretch provision can help spread the beneficiary payout terms of your IRA and/or 401k plans over many years, thus avoiding a lump sum payout that is highly taxed or being split with a former spouse in the case of a divorce
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A special needs family member may have their SSI disability payments put at risk if they received a lump sum payout rather than having it allocated to a Special Needs Trust
The real question is not how much money you have, but what you want to do with it!
We once did a trust for a parent whose modest estate consisted of a $38,000 mutual fund. His reason: he thought his family would argue over his assets. And he was right, they did — but he had a trust in place and the assets went exactly where he wanted them to go! Additionally, trusts are kept private unlike with a Last Will & Testament.
I already have a trust but haven't updated it in years. What should I do?
We offer the ability for you to restate your trust, keeping its original date of origination but enabling you to use our platform for online updating and adding new sub-trust features.
You store my documents in the "cloud"; is that secure?
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You have a secure password for your documents and you are notified every time you access these documents to assure that that access is authorized.
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Our data is stored at DocuBank, where over 1,000 law firms store their data.
How is this different from LegalZoom or other online alternatives?
The online platforms are very simple estate documents that demand the use of a lawyer to create any variation. They do not offer the depth of customization or knowledgeable client management service support that we do. Most of the items that are most often requested by our clients are not available on those platforms (Generation holding trusts, Medicaid Qualifying Trusts, 401K stretch trusts, Asset funding kit, etc.) without significant additional legal fees.
The biggest service difference is that we have pre-negotiated trust company fees to dramatically lower your estate’s cost at settlement and its ongoing administrative fees which are documented up front!
There are 50 states with various trust rules. Are you able to handle those variations?
Yes.
We offer a default situs (location of trust establishment) for Nevada or South Dakota the lowest tax environment and most friendly trust judicial venue for all our clients if they wish to take advantage of our Nevada or South Dakota corporate trustee services and Nevada or South Dakota lawyer in the trust package. There is now a Uniform Trust Code that assures that the basics of our system are in alignment with all 50 states. We also offer a word document version of our documents if local state lawyers determine they need to make changes in the Will or POA documents that have variation by state.
Do I need to retitle all of my assets to the trust?
Our primary trust is a Revocable Living Trust, it uses a funding ledger to identify and transition title of your assets to your trust which is created by you, you are the named trustee while alive, and you are the beneficiary while alive - so you are in total control. This makes trust funding very simple to use and update as life changes. If you have payable on death assets (Qualified plans, Annuities, Retirement plans or insurance) they need to have the plan or policy administrator retitle those assets to the trust. We provide a form letter to the administrator to retitle these assets.