August 27, 2019

You might have heard the term pour-over will while discussing the possibility of a revocable living trust with your estate planning lawyer. A living trust is often used in conjunction with a pour-over will.

The essence of how this works is that all property that passes through your will at the time of your death is transferred into a trust and is then distributed to trust beneficiaries that you named while you are still alive. Many people might be curious about whether or not there are advantages to using a pour-over will.

What’s the reason for having a will that does nothing except transfer property into your trust? The answer is that your estate planning attorney might recommend that it’s a good idea to have all of your assets protected by the terms of only one document and that is your trust document.

There are three major advantages to using this pour-over will. First of all, trusts are private unlike a will. Secondly, you won’t transfer everything you own into your living trust, but the pour-over will gives you a sense of completeness because it takes care of assets that you don’t get around to transferring into the trust prior to your death.

Finally, the last advantage of a pour-over will is simplicity. It makes it extremely clear as to who receives what and, therefore, makes that process simpler for your trustee and executor, who are responsible for wrapping up your estate after you pass away.