Trust or Last Will?
I have been looking at which of these would be better for my family.
I have a retirement account that will make payments to my wife upon my death, and any remaining would be a cash payout to my children as designated benificiaries if we are both deceased. Children are grown with one last one halfway thru college.
I have life insurance payable to my wife and then to my kids if she precedes me in death. She has life insurance set up the same way.
Only other assets would be anything from house and property if it gets sold off to cover outstanding debts. There is some personal property to disperse amongst the kids. The main thing would be making sure the college gets paid for and minimizing the taxes and lawyer fees..
A simple will looked like the right step but I have read where a trust can be used to shelter any financial assets from taxes and be used to divide/disperse the money and property. However, one source, a local lawyer, stated to me that since my beneficiaries were designated already, i didn't need to have a trust to do the same thing.
In your opinions, which would be more appropriate based on my above info?
You can have a WILL with no Trust, but not the other way around (i believe) . They go hand-in-hand. I have a trust and got a will with it, the lawyer explained the reasoning, it was so long ago I dont remember.
A trust is an entity, which suppose to protect assests from personal liabilty. A WILL is basically you. So I think a WILL could be challenged more so than a trust could. I would talk to the lawyer a bit more. I went trust route for NFA/Class 3 stuff, but I also use to take care of my assests, etc.
Hey, yeah the trust route would be cool for NFA goodies!
Thanks for your input. We'll have to dig around on it some more.
