Wills and Trusts

Wills and Trusts are tools used in estate planning. There is a general misunderstanding that this subject should be of interest only to the rich and very rich.

Wills

A Will is a document in which a person declares what he or she wants done with his or her property at the time of his or her death. A Will has no effect until the person who wrote it, known as the testator, dies. The testator can revoke or change a Will any number of times and at anytime prior to his or her death.

A Will also allows a parent to name a guardian with whom any minor children left behind will live. If a person with minor children dies without a Will, the Surrogate’s Court, not the deceased parent, will decide who will be the children’s guardian.

If a person dies without a Will, they are said to have died “intestate”.  Their property will be distributed according to a Distribution Table established by New York State’s Estates, Powers and Trusts Law (EPTL §4-1.1), which may differ from the decedent’s intentions or wishes. Most of our clients find that the distributions made under intestacy do not reflect their intentions and so have us draft a Will for them.

Whether a Will is right for you and what it should do is unique to each client.

To contact an attorney with experience in all aspects of Wills and Trusts, please complete the form to the right and press ‘submit’.  Someone will get back to you as soon as possible.

Trusts

A Trust provides for the management of the assets placed into the trust by the Creator (Settlor). Trusts created during a creator’s life are called Living Trusts; trusts created after death (i.e. in a Will) are called Testamentary Trusts. Trusts are either revocable or irrevocable.

A Revocable Living Trust provides for the management of the creator’s assets during his/her life and functions like a Will when the creator dies, by directing how his/her assets will be distributed. However, unlike a Will, no probate is required. Such a Trust makes sense for people seeking to avoid the cost, delay and loss of privacy associated with probate.

An Irrevocable Living Trust is frequently used in Medicaid planning and provides benefits similar to a Revocable Living Trust, however, such a Trust has serious restrictions that make it much less flexible than a Revocable Trust.

Whether a Trust is advisable and what type of Trust is preferred depends on each person’s goals and circumstances.

To contact an attorney with experience in all aspects of Wills and Trusts, please complete the form to the right and press ‘submit’.  Someone will get back to you as soon as possible.