Trust ME
Most people would do WELL to have a living trust.
I had a deadbeat brother try to contest my mom's plan and he went to hire a lawyer, when the lawyer saw that mom had a living trust, his lawyer basically told him forget about it.
BUT, basically, if you care about your survivors, a living trust makes things about 1000 percent more easy. I have dealt with the death of a few relatives, and I have been the trustee for all of them.
None of them particulary rich, but their living trusts made my job simple. I DID NOT EVEN HAVE TO PROBATE THEIR POUR-OVER WILLS, because everything was covered by the trusts.
My mom had a "trust mill" attorney -- one of the ones who go around to the community senior centers and nursing homes to give free talks -- do her trust, but, seriously, trusts are exceedlingly simple and his $150 trust did the job perfectly fine for mom.
After that, I just copied mom's trust and adapted it for two other aunts and myself.
Here are a couple of links. I would read them if I were you and then make your own decision.
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/top-three-benefits-of-a-living-trust
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/revocable-living-trusts.html
then there were the very sentimental family items she had that over the 30 or so years her living trust existed she choose to gift (during her lifetime) to certain family members. not a peep of a complaint was raised about these during her lifetime, but all it takes is one sibling to raise a complaint and if they've got the money for a lawyer it can be argued that mom illegally dispersed items in the trust (b/c of the wording that all of her physical property was included-and she decided to gift them when she downsized into an apartment
). all it would have taken was getting the equivalent to a pod on the car title to make this a non issue.
living trusts are fine-so long as all the property/assets are set up in the trust AND KEPT THERE!
mom was like allot of seniors who depended on the interest her savings garnered to supplement her income so she would keep track of when her cd's were maturing and often move them to new banks for better interest rates. problem was when she moved them she didn't set them up in the living trust name so that took them outside the trust
same can be said with wills though-unless you set things up so whomever is executing them can easily deal with items it can be a pain. with the will we dealt with the biggest pain was a car. it along with everything else was to be evenly divided, but in many states a car can't get transferred for a period of time (we dealt w/45 days) and in the meantime try getting an insurance company to insure for a deceased person OR as executor your insurance company to insure for a car not titled in your name (and the dmv/dol won't transfer title after the waiting period unless it's been insured over the waiting period)
nolo's books on wills and estates are great-I would recommend getting one, reading it and THEN making an appointment w/a lawyer. you will save the money by not having to ask allot of questions, and you can make sure your estate is set up for the state you live in (and if you have an inkling you might move out of state when you retire the lawyer can look to that as well cuz states REALY differ on their laws).
i'll just add that in addition to a will or trust one of the kindest documents a person can leave whomever is left to deal with their final affairs is a listing of information that includes (but is not limited to) the following-
names of utility companies w/phone number (including whose name the account is under/account number)-it's hard enough to cancel service when you're not authorized as a contact on the account, harder still when you find out 'mom' never changed it out of 'dad's' name when he passed 30 years earlier (then you have to find dad's death certificate and paperwork on how any deposits were to have been paid on his death)
names of companies with contracts/phone number/account numbers-things like life alert, cell phones, home warranties...
list of credit cards/account numbers/if established-passwords. much easier to go down a list to call each and determine if there's anything owed vs. having to wade through bank statements (and it's a nightmare if deceased did all on-line payments and go e-statements)
list of life insurance/death benefits potentially eligible to-again, a nightmare to track down without information
list of former addresses, and ideally something that showed the deceased lived there at one time-mom passed 4 years ago and there's still a small amount of money on one state assessor's unclaimed property site but we will never be able to get it b/c we can't prove she's the named person b/c we have nothing that links her to the decades old address
location of any storage lockers and ideally a spare key-never would have located one except a hospitalization caused non payment of the rent so we found a phone message from the facility on her answering machine
location of last few years of tax returns-it can at least provide a guideline for how the final year's taxes should be completed (esp. if someone has obscure deductions or sources of income).
finally-if you receive or will potently receive a pension, find out what whomever administrates it requires to have on file to report your death/arrange for any eligible survivors to receive on-going benefits/apply for any lump sum payouts or life insurance. this is especially the case if a government employer is involved-we had a nightmare dealing with CalPERS
oh-and it's REALY nice if you can include with the above items notarized copies of your birth certificate, marriage certificate, any predeceased spouse's death certificates b/c if they are needed it can take upwards of months to get them from some counties
i'll just add that in addition to a will or trust one of the kindest documents a person can leave whomever is left to deal with their final affairs is a listing of information that includes (but is not limited to) the following-
names of utility companies w/phone number (including whose name the account is under/account number)-it's hard enough to cancel service when you're not authorized as a contact on the account, harder still when you find out 'mom' never changed it out of 'dad's' name when he passed 30 years earlier (then you have to find dad's death certificate and paperwork on how any deposits were to have been paid on his death)
names of companies with contracts/phone number/account numbers-things like life alert, cell phones, home warranties...
list of credit cards/account numbers/if established-passwords. much easier to go down a list to call each and determine if there's anything owed vs. having to wade through bank statements (and it's a nightmare if deceased did all on-line payments and go e-statements)
list of life insurance/death benefits potentially eligible to-again, a nightmare to track down without information
list of former addresses, and ideally something that showed the deceased lived there at one time-mom passed 4 years ago and there's still a small amount of money on one state assessor's unclaimed property site but we will never be able to get it b/c we can't prove she's the named person b/c we have nothing that links her to the decades old address
location of any storage lockers and ideally a spare key-never would have located one except a hospitalization caused non payment of the rent so we found a phone message from the facility on her answering machine
location of last few years of tax returns-it can at least provide a guideline for how the final year's taxes should be completed (esp. if someone has obscure deductions or sources of income).
finally-if you receive or will potently receive a pension, find out what whomever administrates it requires to have on file to report your death/arrange for any eligible survivors to receive on-going benefits/apply for any lump sum payouts or life insurance. this is especially the case if a government employer is involved-we had a nightmare dealing with CalPERS
oh-and it's REALY nice if you can include with the above items notarized copies of your birth certificate, marriage certificate, any predeceased spouse's death certificates b/c if they are needed it can take upwards of months to get them from some counties
