How to Set Up a Trust

Video Transcript

"My name is Julie Asti I'm a Certified Financial Planner with Asti Financial Management, and I'm going to talk today about how to set up a Trust. Before I talk about how to set up a Trust, it's important to know that there are two different types of really common state planning documents. There's a living will and there's also a Living Trust. A living will is a document that comes in to action in a sense, upon your death. So upon your death, you would have a living will that you would have drawn up and that would be a way to disburse your assets to heirs, friends and family. It's important to note that a living will does not bypass probate, it just is a way to transfer your assets to another person. But your estate would still be subject to the probate process through the courts and there's a fee and there's expense involved with that. If you're taking a look at a living trust. A living trust is a document that actually is as it says a living trust and it's a revocable document that is in place and enacted while you are alive. And what that means is that you can place assets in and out of the trust as you deem fit, based upon changing accounts, buying assets, selling assets. The two main reasons people move from a living will which is a very simple document that just passes asset A to person A. The reason why people move in to a living trust is usually when they either hold property and property, I mean either rent a real estate or a primary residence or when somebody has children. What a living trust is going to be able to do for you, is you put assets in to the living trust, it's going to be able to help those assets bypass probate. That doesn't mean that it will avoid any estate taxes if there would be any due but it means that you've set up a document that tells how to pass asset A to person A within a trust that's recognized by the government, therefore it would bypass the probate process and it would save you probate fees which can be very expensive. In terms in setting up a living trust, it can be a complex process. When you're looking at children, you're talking about who's going to be the guardian. You're also talking about when your children would be able to inherit assets and that may be a tricky proposition. If you have children, the main concern with a living trust is that you're going to want to take a look at who's going to be the guardian for the children and also how the assets are going to be disbursed over time. If you have property you're going to want to definitely make sure that the property is going to be held in the title of the living trust. In terms of working through the nuances of the titling of the property and going through the county process to get the deed and the title transferred over, and also going through the process of guardianship with your children, and there are just a lot of nuances and complexities that you need to really consider and walk through with somebody who's a trained professional to help you make the right decisions for your situation. My name is Julie Asti. I'm a certified financial with Asti Financial Management and you can learn more about my company and my services at www.astifinancial.com."