Video: Family Estate Trust or Revocable Living Trust?

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Most people who ask for family estate trusts really want a revocable living trust to reduce estate taxes and manage finances. Consider family estate or revocable living trusts with an estate planning and probate lawyer in this free video on estate law.

- The Purpose of an Irrevocable Living Trust

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Video Transcript

Sometimes, people come into our office and ask for a family estate trust, and we always have to kind of scratch our head a little bit and say, okay, now what do you really want? Usually, what folks want when they ask for a family estate trust is they really want something called a revocable living trust. A revocable living trust is a trust that somebody sets up; a husband and wife can set it up; a single person can set it up. The job of a revocable living trust is really two. One is to make sure while you're alive and well things are fine. You don't need to notice anything. Nothing's changed in your life at all. You're writing checks, you're paying bills. It's all fairly and and almost completely invisible. But if you become incapacitated, we want to make sure there's somebody there who's a trustee. The trustee is somebody you love and trust, or maybe a trust company, and the trust company is managed and supervised by somebody you love and trust. Whoever the trustee is after you can't be the trustee, make sure your assets are properly invested and spent for you during this period of time that you're incapacitated. The second purpose of a family estate trust, or again, more commonly known as a revocable living trust, is to make sure that if you have passed away, that your assets go to your family the way that you want to. We want to avoid probate if we can so that we can keep assets private, we want to minimize court involvement, and frankly, minimize attorney involvement too.

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Family Estate Trust or Revocable Living Trust?

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