February 8, 2022

There are many different decisions you need to make as part of the estate planning process and some of them will have to do with your real property. You might be wondering whether you should use a living trust or a will to transfer your primary home. There are two big reasons why it makes sense to put your house inside a living trust into a will.

The first of these is that a living trust helps avoid probate. This is when an administrator approved by the courts steps in to validate a will. Probate can be confrontational and time consuming if anyone in the family contests the will. Trusts, however, cannot be contested through the probate process as they don’t go through probate. The second major reason to place your house inside a living trust is to protect your assets.

If you are worried about leaving assets behind to family members who are not financially savvy or to young children, you can structure your trust so that a third party like a bank or a trusted relative will be responsible for administering the trust assets responsibly. You can also get creditor or divorce protection depending on the type of trust that you create with the help of an estate planning lawyer. This can help you align your individual goals with what you want to achieve in the estate planning process.

Our office can help you determine the next steps to take with any estate plan, including thinking through what to do with your real property.