Trusts are very robust and handy estate planning tools. If you are not familiar with trusts, perhaps you should read some articles that explain what trusts are (See Trusts Compared to Corporations; The Benefits of Living Trusts; and Avoiding Probate is a Matter of Trust) Even if you are familiar with trusts, the difference between…
Some significant changes affecting trusts have come to Illinois with the New Year. Effective January 1, 2020, the Illinois Trust Code replaced the Illinois Trusts and Trustees Act. One of the biggest areas of change involves the duty of a trustee to provide an accounting. One of the hallmarks of the fiduciary duty that applies…
I’ve seen it time and time again. A client comes in who has added a son, or a daughter, or a grandchild, or a niece or nephew, or someone else to the client’s bank account… or that is the client’s plan. It seems like a good idea. It gives another person access to the bank…
The benefits of doing a living trust and transferring your assets into the trust during life are many. A primary benefit is that your estate will circumvent the probate process when you pass, if you do things right, saving your loved ones many months of administrative burdens, delays, attorney’s fees and other costs. You also…
The concept of a trust is difficult for many people to grasp because a trust is a concept, and therefore is intangible. Another intangible concept that is more familiar, and therefore seems easier to understand, is a corporation. Corporations have some similarities to trusts and, therefore, provide a helpful comparison. A quick look at the…
The sign is a clue to what a recent article in the Trusts & Estate section of WealthManagement.com identifies as a trend away from estate planning and, therefore, toward more probating of estates. (The Shift from Estate Planning to Estate Probating) In other words, the author believes the national trend indicates a penchant for putting off doing estate planning. The…