Episode Video
Episode Podcast
Tom discusses Michigan’s new Qualified Dispositions in Trust Act that makes it easier to create a trust to protect your assets from your creditors. Find out how simple it can now be to protect what you own from risks of lawsuits and creditors.
We just launched our new weekly Internet radio program called “Tuesday with Tom”. New episodes will be available on Tuesday mornings by 8am.
Here is the link to my Estate Planning presentation “How to Avoid the Six Most Common Estate Planning Mistakes” that was on the Financial Fitness Show After Hours program on May 13, 2014.
Often, the reason clients will have a living trust is to avoid probate. And, we talk about the need be sure that assets are properly “funded” to the living trust, since assets not in the trust might still have to be probated.
If you hold a safe deposit box as an individual, separate from your living trust, what happens when you die? No one will have access to your safe deposit box until a probate estate is opened with the probate court, and a personal representative has been appointed. Thus, you will not have avoided probate.
On the other hand, if you hold the safe deposit box in the name of your trust, your successor trustee can access the box and its contents without probate. And, unlike a joint holder of a safe deposit box, your successor trustee is under a fiduciary duty to follow the terms of your trust in managing and distributing your assets, including those in the safe deposit box.
Think of a Trust as a box sitting on your table. The only property that will be controlled by the Trust is what has been put inside the box. This is often called “funding” your trust.
Stuff is put in the box either by putting in the box now (i.e. changing titles) or having it added when you die (i.e. making the trust a beneficiary).