Wills and Living Wills Article


Revocable Living Trust

A trust is a contract between yourself as the Trustmaker/Grantor/Settlor/Trustor and yourself (typically) as Trustee (the person that manages the trust). You can change or revoke the trust at any time that you have capacity.


You can specify who determines your disability. You can set out the terms of the trust to handle distribution while you are alive and well, alive and disabled, and not alive. The trust handles both disability and providing for your beneficiaries. You can set the terms for how and when your beneficiaries receive assets from the trust. If the beneficiary has disabilities, a special needs trust may be appropriate.


You may want assets held in trust for a minor beneficiary. If a beneficiary is going through bankruptcy or has creditor issues, you may want to draft the trust so that the beneficiary cannot demand the money from the Trustee. Sometimes trusts are set up to provide protection in event of divorce (if the beneficiary receives the money outright and then commingles it with spouse, it can be hard to trace what is left, if anything, if the inheritance and amounts not traceable are included in what is divided in the divorce).


Consult an estate planning attorney to review your goals/wishes and the various options in this area.


Make sure you properly fund your trust after signing it and review all beneficiary designations to make sure they meet your wishes. It will be frustrating for your Trustee to not only have to do the trust administration but also the probate because you “forgot” to change title on an asset into your trust.


Comments:

QUESTIONS

  • Do I need a will?
  • My sister died in April leaving her estate to 2 foster children. Her personal representative quit in May and no one has assumed control of the estate and he has not turned it over to anyone. I fear the home will go into foreclosure. I would like to have a private fiduciary take over, what do I have to do to make that happen? The foster children are listed as her only heirs, my brothers are furious, can they prevent a private fiduciary from assuming control and force the foreclosure and loss of her estate? I don't have funds to hire a lawyer, how can I get this accomplished?
  • When a person passes away are the outstanging debts,like credit cards passed on to their adult children?
  • Our former estate lawyer failed to pay for 'records storage' (among which were our wills and trust) and now that we need them because we need to update our trust, the company won't release them to us. How can we get the company to release our papers? We are willing to pay an access fee.
  • how would you find out what happened if someone willed proprty to you after they died several years ago
  • I need to rewrite my will for a third time. The two people I had named as 'Executors' have both passed away. I do not have anyone to act as my Executor. I would like to leave my estate to my college alma mater. How do I handle this in my will?
  • My mother passed away. She does have a will and I was nominated as the executer and trustee. I am the sole beneficiary. She only has a bank account but when the account was setup nobody was on the account but her. no payable unpon death. What is required by the bank for me to access the account to begin paying for her expences? Her will did state that I shoud have immediate access without going through the courts.
  • My mother passed and she has had livestock which she paid the pasture fees and a vehicle she paid for. The problem is the vehicle is in my brothers name and she had him care for animals when she was not able to. Now, are the property now his or should it be probated to all the living children.
  • I am on a fixed income. we need to setup a will or trust. My wife is older than I and we want to have our wishes setup in legal order for our benefactors. We have grown children from previous marriages. Since AZ is a survivor right state, God forbid, if something were to happen to us both, we want legal docs in place for the kids to be governed by. How can we proceed in setting this legal process in motion?
  • Should a will include property with defined beneficiaries such as a trust or a POD account in a bank? Is it a bad idea to include such property?

STORIES

LegalLEARN

FIND LEGAL HELP

  • Please select your county of residence below.

    County:
     

OTHER LEGAL RESOURCES

  • State Bar of Arizona
    www.azbar.org
  • Maricopa County Bar
    www.maricopabar.org
    Referral number 602-257-4434
  • Pima County Bar
    www.pimacountybar.org
    Referral number 520-623-4625
  • National Domestic Violence Hotline
    800-799-7233
  • Bankruptcy Court Self Help Center
    866-553-0893
  • Certified Legal Document Preparer Program
    Link

ORGANIZATIONS

RELATED ARTICLES

Life Care Planning Packet (Advanced Directives), Information and Documents from the Arizona Attorney General

Staying in Charge of Your Future

LINKS

Arizona Office of the Attorney General

AZ Office of the Attorney General Life Care Planning Packet

Maricopa County Judicial Branch Self-Service Center Online

Pima County Courts Self Service Center