A MATTER OF TRUST A
s you read this article, hopefully the good feelings surrounding Thanksgiving have yet to fade and you are now preparing for more special family occasions for the upcoming holidays. This can be a time of the year when family pride and warmth can be front of mind and is a perfect time to reflect on how you’ll be able to take care of your loved ones once you are gone. As the current president of the Fox Valley Estate Planning Council, I can’t encourage you strongly enough to make sure that your estate plan is wellstructured and current. Many people perceive trusts as a complex subject better left to their attorney and often think trusts are available only to the wealthy. However, when stripped of all the bells and whistles, a trust can be viewed as simply a written contract between one individual called the trustee (or grantor) and another individual called a beneficiary (or beneficiaries). The trustee’s job is to see that the terms of the trust are faithfully carried out according to the grantor’s wishes. The word “grantor” is another term for the person who sets up the trust and decides (with the
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help of his or her attorney) what the terms of the trust are going to be.
considerable time and money when it comes to settling your estate.
Once you progress past these fundamental trust “building blocks,” you begin to see that trusts can be powerful tools designed to help individuals navigate a variety of family and tax-related issues. Although there are many distinct types of trusts, a common one is a revocable living trust.
WHEN TRUST IS NOT ENOUGH On its own, working with specialized legal counsel to craft the appropriate trust for you and your family is not enough. You may have the most brilliantly crafted legal document, but it is useless if you have not moved the ownership of your assets over to your trust. Over the decades, our firm has seen a number of people who have established a trust but never bothered to title their investment accounts, their home(s), their vehicles and/or even their basic banking accounts in the name of their trust. Since the wishes reflected in their trust will only apply to the assets held in their trust, we explain the importance of their assets being properly owned by their trust.
REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST A living trust is an estate planning trust that permits you to retain control over your property during your lifetime and avoid probate when you die. Many individuals with firsthand experience of the probate process have sworn to never let their estate pass through probate. (Probate is the term for a legal process in which a will is reviewed to determine whether it is valid and authentic.) A revocable living trust allows you to avoid the expense, delay and publicity of probate. When well-crafted with competent legal counsel, a revocable living trust can be a sound financial tool for you during your lifetime and for your beneficiaries once you have died. In addition, the expense of creating your trust can save
During your year-end review with your financial advisor, make sure that he or she is aware of your estate plan. We also suggest that you authorize your estate planning attorney, your accountant and your financial advisor to share information and to work together so as to better serve you. If that isn’t happening now, call us and perhaps we can help!
BUSINESS & CIVIC DECEMBER 2021
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11/16/21 4:50 PM
