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Phoenix Living Trust: Who is Involved?

A Phoenix living trust is an important part of estate planning. Anyone who has property of any kind to pass on to another party in the event of the property owner’s passing can greatly benefit by establishing a trust. Learn who is involved in the process and what property to consider covering with a Phoenix living trust.

Trustor

When it comes to Phoenix living trust documents, the trustor is the party who initiates the document. This person is the party who holds the assets and who is passing them to the heirs, or beneficiaries.

Trustee

A trustee is the person who is responsible for seeing out that the terms of the Phoenix living trust are carried out. The trustee has no benefit from the estate.

Beneficiaries

A beneficiary is the party who receives property from the trustor. There can be one or many beneficiaries, and a beneficiary does not necessarily have to be a person; beneficiaries can also be charities or organizations.

Property Listed

Deciding what property to cover by a Phoenix living trust is a huge part of the process since it is essentially the reason one would have a trust to begin with. Commonly covered items in a Phoenix living trust include those with monetary or sentimental value. When it comes to assets with financial value, most people list bank accounts, cash, retirement savings accounts, homes, cars, and jewelry under a Phoenix living trust. Sentimental assets are not as commonly covered under trusts, most people include them in wills and that is enough, but in some circumstances people list things like furniture, clothing, photo albums, and keepsakes under a trust.

Protection Your Estate Through a Phoenix Living Trust

Establishing a Phoenix living trust is a very smart move to protect your estate. If you die without an established plan for your assets, your estate will enter the probate court. During this process, it will be up to a judge to decide how your wealth is divided up – this will undoubtedly cost your family time and money in court fees. Without a trust, your assets are also subject to debt collection and a higher tax rate. It is entirely possible that your entire estate will be dissolved into court fees, taxes, settlements against you, and debt collection without your heirs seeing any of it. With a Phoenix living trust, your assets are protected and will not be subjected to collection of any kind and will not be made public record.

Learn more about Phoenix Living Trusts with Scott Schoeller -

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3055 E Waterman Way
Gilbert, AZ 85297

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San Diego, CA 92108

Differences Between a Phoenix Living Trust and Will

The legal documents, Phoenix living trust and will, are very commonly confused because they sound and seem so similar in their nature. This confusion often leads people to settle with the option that might not be best for them. Not all people need a Phoenix living trust, but many do – learn about your options.

How a Phoenix Living Trust and a Will Are Different

Firstly, there are two different types of will documents; both have similarities to a Phoenix living trust. The types of will options are last will and living will. Let’s look at the Phoenix living trust, living will, and last will in more depth to discover the differences and benefits.

Living Will

A living will is a plan that allows you the outline decisions about your estate, care, and dependents. Living wills don’t just come into play in the event of your death, but in the event of an illness that renders you incapacitated unfit to make decisions for yourself.  With a will you can specify things such as your wishes about life support, burial, and who is to become the guardian of your minor child/children.

Last Will

A last will typically comes with the most risks and can be subjected to entering the probate court. When creating a last will, you can name beneficiaries, guardians of dependents, and specify your last wishes. However, a last will can be challenged.

Living Trust

A Phoenix living trust is an option used to transfer your estate, or part of your estate, to named beneficiaries.  It allows you to specify how your wealth is transfer and can protect your assets from high taxes and bill collectors.

When a Phoenix Living Trust is the Best Option

A Phoenix living trust is a very safe option when it comes to estate planning. Living trusts are typically attached to a will plan, it just makes it so you can be as detailed as you would like about the distribution of your wealth. A living trust not only specifies who gets your assets, but how they are spent. For example, a trust may make it so your beneficiaries can only spend their inheritance on schooling or living expenses.

Trusts also protect your estate from debt collection. This option also keeps your records private and out of the probate court. Many factors prompt an establishment of a Phoenix living trust. Usually, a Phoenix living will is established when wealth is accumulated or marital circumstances change – such as marriage to a person who is not the parent of your children.

Common Phoenix Living Trust Questions and Concerns

Various kinds of Phoenix living trust plans can help to keep your estate from being tied up after your death – or used in ways you do not desire. Learn about the most common Phoenix living trust questions and concerns.

What is a Phoenix Living Trust?

A Phoenix living trust is a legal arrangement made by a person, or trustor, who wishes to hold estate assets for a beneficiary. The term Phoenix living trust simply means that the trust was established while you were alive, as opposed to being created because of your passing.

Who Needs a Phoenix Living Trust?

Anyone who has property of significant monetary or sentimental value needs to establish a Phoenix living trust to avoid complications with their estate in the event of their death. Commonly trust protected assets include cash, savings accounts, homes, cars, family heirlooms, jewelry, and more. A Phoenix living trust is also a good way to control what your money is spent on and how your estate is handled. For example, with a trust in place you will be able to restrict spending to educational purposes or living expenses. You can also divide up assets amongst family members – a common practice when the trustor has children who are not related to their current spouse.

What Happens When You Do Not Have a Phoenix Living Trust?

If you do not have a will or trust before your death, your family may have to wait months or even years to receive any of their inheritance. Should you pass without the proper estate plan in place; your estate will enter the probate court system. At that point, it will be up to a judge to decide who gets what of your wealth.

Can Creditors Interfere With a Phoenix Living Trust?

Absolutely not! Creditors are main concern for people who establish Phoenix living trusts before they die. If you are not around to defend your assets against creditors, many may pursue a cut of your estate that they are not entitled too! Without being able to show up in court to defend against suits and settlements, who knows how much of your money may go towards debt collectors rather than your family members. Even if debtors are unsuccessful in collecting any of your money, your family will likely still have legal bills as a result – and not to mention a huge loss of time.

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Living Trust Versus Traditional Will

When it comes to planning out what will happen to your assets upon your passing, it may seem as though your options are endless and it can be hard to know which products are best for you. It may seem even more confusing when the options seem to overlap, as they do with a traditional will and a living trust. A living trust account stipulates what will happen to your major assets, such as real estate, upon your passing, while allowing you to administer them while you are still living. A traditional will gives you a place in which to account for your wishes relating to all things – from custody of living minor children to what you want to happen to your favorite jewelry and beyond. They are two different products and can be used separately or together to create a whole approach to estate planning.

A Phoenix living trust is often utilized for real estate purposes. It allows you to title your real estate assets into the trust, meaning you can administer it while you are still living and manage it just as you would have prior to re-titling it into the trust. However, once you pass, instead of your property going through the process of probate, the benefit of the trust is that it would then pass directly to the person in question named as the beneficiary in the living trust document.

By comparison, a traditional will simply allows you the option to dictate how you want your assets to be divided. However, the major assets of the estate, such as property, must go through a specific legal process before they can be administered to anyone stipulated in the will document. Probate is often costly to the estate and extremely time consuming, which means it could be some time before the asset in question can be accessed by whomever was named in the will for this purpose.

More often than not, these two products are used together to complement one another. The living trust can be utilized for property purposes, while the traditional will document can be used to stipulate some of the details about other elements of the estate. When it comes to planning for this purpose, you can never have too many tools through which to plan what will happen to all things under the umbrella of your estate. In fact, the more you plan, the easier you make it on your loved ones.

How To Know If You Need a Living Trust

There are numerous estate planning products available to utilize in order to plan out how your estate will be laid out. This is important because the last thing you want is for your loved ones to have to figure out how to handle your estate while they are grieving. Things like a Phoenix, AZ living trust will make it easy for them to know your wishes and follow them accordingly. Knowing whether or not you need a living trust can be a tricky process, as you must first understand the benefits of such a document and how it works to protect your assets and help them to be administered upon your passing.

A living trust is a document that allows you to re-title your assets under the confines of the trust, with yourself – or someone you trust – as the trustee and administrator of the account. However, upon your passing, the asset in question, usually real estate, passes to the beneficiary of the trust and they are free to administer it according to your wishes. If you have any major assets or anticipate a great deal of confusion surrounding your estate planning documents upon your passing, then a Phoenix, AZ living trust is not a bad idea. It gives your loved ones guidance on what you want done, and allows your probate to forgo the process of probate, which can be quite costly to your estate.

If you are unsure of whether or not this document is applicable to your situation, then you might consult with a professional. Depending on what other products you may already have in play, you might find that you do, in fact, need a Phoenix living trust and it can be a beneficial addition to your repertoire of estate planning tools. It isn’t costly to create and can be changed at any time prior to your passing, which is another reason it is so beneficial. Consider this as a way to administer your own assets in life and then have them distributed in the way that you want upon your passing. It can complement a traditional will and ensure that through their grief, your loved ones don’t have to make any major decisions about some of the largest components of your estate. This way, it is taken care of and you and your loved ones have peace of mind to this effect.

Financial Aspects of Living Trust

When it comes to determining whether or not you need a living trust, there are a number of factors to consider. First, is whether or not your assets actually require a living trust. If you don’t have major assets, such as property or assets of that nature, then you may not need to title things under this document. However, if you do, this is a good way to manage those assets and then allow them to pass to the beneficiary of that trust upon your passing.

In addition to considering the general aspects of a Phoenix living trust, there are also the financial considerations to keep in mind. One of the more commonly asked questions about this document is whether or not it is expensive to create. Since a living trust is not generally any more complicated than a traditional will, it is not something you would need to hire a lawyer to help you create if you don’t have a lot of assets to title into it. However, if you do have a number of assets to title into the living trust, then professional assistance might be necessary to ensure that you do things right.

Another thing to consider is that while your assets are re-titled into a living trust to protect them from the process of probate, it is not an automatic protectant against creditors that try to go after you to collect debts. In most instances, upon your passing, anything you owned is subject to debts that you lawfully owe. This means that creditors can use public property records to find out what your assets are, in terms of property anyway, and the pursue them for payment, despite the fact that they are included in your living trust. Ironically, this is something that probate can protect your property assets from; despite the fact that most people try to avoid this process because it is long and often costly.

When you are setting up a living trust, these are the kinds of questions that it is important to ask. Finding out the best way to set up the trust so that it offers optimal protection and ensures that your assets are protected and passed down in the way in which you stipulate is the purpose of this type of estate planning and is the crux of why you would set up a Phoenix living trust.

Four Things To Know About A Living Trust

A Phoenix living trust, also referred to as a revocable living trust, is a document that designates the responsibility of your property or other major assets to a specific individual to manage. It is something that you create while you are living and as long as you remain mentally stable, competent and in control of your faculties, you are able to change the trust or even dissolve it at your will. In fact, it doesn’t become unchangeable in most cases until you pass away. However, it helps to know as much as possible about them, so you are informed as to how they work. Consider four important factors that you should know about a living trust:

 

There are three people involved in the process: There is the creator of the trust; the trustee, which is the person appointed to manage it (which could still be you); and the beneficiary, which is the person that benefits the trust upon your passing. In fact, many people do name themselves or their spouse as the trustee as they want to control their assets while they are still alive. This gives you the control over selling the assets within the confines of the trust as well as the control to make investment decisions, as well.

 

A living trust is different from a traditional will: A traditional will lays out what you want to happen with your estate and in what way. A Phoenix living trust is specific to major assets, such as property. Both are legally binding, but anything included in a will document must pass through the legal process of probate; a living trust helps to avoid this time consuming and often costly process.

 

If you don’t have a living trust, it may take quite a bit of time and money to get your property through probate: This is the very thing that most people try to avoid by generating a living trust and is the major benefit of this document.

 

A Phoenix living trust can be challenged just like any other element of an estate planning toolkit: Just as a traditional will can be challenged, a living trust can, as well. Keep this in mind when you are planning this document and incorporating those individual(s) that you want to include as beneficiaries of your living trust and your estate in general. This document does not guard against those relatives that feel left out of the process.

“by Kandice Linwright” at Google

Summary:

A living trust, also referred to as a revocable living trust, is a document that designates the responsibility of your property or other major assets to a specific individual to manage. It is something that you create while you are living and as long as you remain mentally stable, competent and in control of your faculties, you are able to change the trust or even dissolve it at your will.

A living trust is specific to major assets, such as property. Both are legally binding, but anything included in a will document must pass through the legal process of probate; a living trust helps to avoid this time consuming and often costly process.

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retplannerChart Four Things To Know About A Living Trust

What NOT To Include In A Traditional Will

When it comes to creating an Arizona will document, there are a host of things that you can include. Specific arrangements for minor children, issues dealing with property and other major assets and monetary requests are all good inclusions for your traditional will. Medical wishes are best left in a Phoenix living will and current plans for property and other major assets are perfect for a Phoenix living trust. However, while there are a number of things to be sure to include in your will, it also helps to know what not to include as well.

This is, in part, an issue of being practical. The last thing you want is to end up with a document that is too long, too cumbersome and completely unhelpful. The other issue is of a legal nature; some aspects of your Arizona will, no matter to what extent you include them, simply cannot be legally enforced. Consider some of the more common elements of a will that people often include that they should not:

Monetary insurance divisions: It doesn’t matter what you say in your will about who gets what in terms of life insurance monies; it’s all about what the policy says. Hands down, every time, the language of the policy overrides what you have in your Arizona will and nothing you notate in this document will sway the insurance company or change that fact.

Funeral wishes: Here is the thing about the reading and administration of an Arizona will: it takes time. It isn’t a next day kind of thing, but a funeral is. Funerals generally happen long before the will is property administered, which means that including anything about your wishes for a burial, funeral service, etc. will likely be in vain. This is something that you might set up with the funeral home ahead of time, so that whatever wishes you have are followed to the letter. It’s also a good conversation to have with family members and other loved ones.

Stipulations of gifts left for loved ones: For instance, if you have been waiting for a family member to get married, you cannot require them to do so before being able to access a certain gift. These kinds of conditions are not generally enforced by the courts in any state; nor are any gifts or conditions that are illegal in nature.

Leaving something to Fido: You can do this through a trust in more than 40 states, but in a number of states, the courts will not recognize nor enforce anything you leave in your Phoenix will to your pet. Use a trust to do so, just to ensure that your wishes are properly administered.

Arranging for special needs care: If you are caring for a loved one with special needs and want to make arrangements for that care through your Arizona will, you might reconsider. Instead, do so through a special needs trust to ensure that the parameters of the trust are properly administered and followed-through on.

Family First Estate and Corporate Services, LLC, now serving Phoenix Living Trusts, Mesa, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Tempe, and all across the valley!

Arizona Estate Planning Offices
3055 E Waterman Way
Gilbert, AZ 85297

California Estate Planning Offices
4025 Camino Del Rio South
Suite 300
San Diego, CA 92108

“by Kandice Linwright”

Talk With Family About Estate Planning

If you’ve decided to start the New Year off right by engaging in the all-important task of estate planning, you’ve taken a step in the right direction. Not only is this process key to successfully accounting for your assets and making important decisions about what you would want to happen should you pass away or become incapacitated, but it also makes things easier on your family. After all, with an Arizona will, your family has a guide of sorts in which to make decisions about your estate.

And since this is typically a time of major grieving and sadness, making decisions can seem even harder than usual. By creating an Arizona will to give an accounting for what your wishes may have been, your family will have an easier time navigating the grief process. This all starts with a conversation with pertinent family members when you initially start the estate planning process. If you are doing an Arizona will, an Phoenix living will or even an Phoenix living trust, talk with those family members that will be involved in the decision-making process for your estate.

Go over major decisions you’ve made in relation to these documents and give your family members a chance to ask questions or have input on this process. This is particularly important to those family members to whom you’ve asked to be beneficiaries or administrators on your Phoenix will. It’s better for them to get to ask you questions now than be left wondering after you’ve passed on what you might have wanted in a particular area or pertaining to a specific aspect of your will. Moreover, it gives you some control over major decisions; this is specifically the case with an Arizona living will, which puts you in the driver’s seat for your medical decisions before you can no longer make them yourself.

The more involved your family is on the process, at least those immediate adult members, the easier the entire process will be for them to navigate upon your passing. Death and medical emergencies are hard on loved ones and it can cloud judgments and cause them to think much less clearly. If you lay everything out clearly ahead of time, you can make things easier on them and take the decision-making out of their hands. Moreover, you are assured that what you would have wanted will take place with regards to your estate and your assets.

If you have questions regarding the entire estate planning process, but refuse to pay those ridiculous fees that the ‘other guys’ charge, call Scott today!!

Arizona Estate Planning Offices
3055 E Waterman Way
Gilbert, AZ 85297

California Estate Planning Offices
4025 Camino Del Rio South
Suite 300
San Diego, CA 92108

“by Kandice Linwright”

Tips to Start Estate Planning

If you’ve decided that this is going to be the year in which you organize your estate, chances are, you’ve quite a bit to do by way of information gathering and organizing all of your materials. Whether you’ve opted for an Arizona living trust or elected to do an Arizona will, you still need to get your information together to make the process of planning and implementing these tools as seamless as possible.  Consider a few tips to get you started:

  • Get all important papers in one place ahead of time: You may need copies of important identifying documents, such as social security numbers or birth certificates to create a Phoenix living trust or a Phoenix will. Get pertinent paperwork together before you start the process of putting together these products to ensure that they contain the most accurate information once they are complete.
  • Make sure everything is accurate: No matter what you decide to utilize in your estate planning – a Phoenix living will, traditional Phoenix will or a Phoenix living trust, make sure that whatever information you decide to include is accurate to the best of your knowledge.
  • Consult with a professional: If you are unsure of what product is best for you, consult with an estate planning professional. Ask about what product best suits your situation and how you can maximize the effectiveness of your estate with various products. For instance, when it comes to appointing someone to make medical decisions on your behalf when you are no longer able to, an Arizona living will is the best choice of product. If you want a more detailed document that gives clear directives on administering your estate, then an Arizona will is your choice. An Arizona living trust is best for situations where you want to control your estate while you are still living, and the major assets found within it, but have it pass to a specific person without incurring the process of probate, then you would opt for an Arizona living trust for your estate.

No matter what kind of estate planning products you utilize, be it a traditional Phoenix will or a Phoenix living trust, the more prepared you are ahead of time, the more likely it is that you will end up with an overall plan that both caters to your specific wishes while ensuring that your estate is properly administered following your passing.

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