Welcome to the Law Office of Andrew Fesler! In today’s video, we’re discussing a crucial aspect of estate planning: how a trust can help you avoid probate. Probate can be a lengthy and costly process, but with the right planning, you can ensure your assets are smoothly transferred to your beneficiaries. Let’s examine the details of how a trust works and why it’s an effective tool for avoiding probate.
Transcript:
” A trust avoids probate because it’s essentially a private contract between the settlor, the creator of the trust, the trustees or trustee of the trust, and the beneficiaries of the trust because the trust owns the assets, and that’s a critical point. The trust has to own all of the assets that it’s going to transfer. If the trust owns those assets, when the person passes away who created the trust, there’s actually not a change of ownership that needs to go through the probate process. The trust continues to own the same assets, but the trustee of the trust changes. The beneficiary of the trust changes, but the trust is still the entity that owns those assets.
Because there’s no probatable change of ownership, we don’t have to file a court case, which is essentially what a probate action is, and the transfer of those assets can go much quicker. It’s much simpler. It’s also private because there’s no court case, assuming that we don’t have to file a probate. Because the trust is a private transaction, we don’t have to advertise in the newspaper that a probate is occurring and we don’t have to wait around as long for creditors. We have to wait a little bit of a time for creditors to show up, but it doesn’t have to be quite as long as if we had to file a full-on probate.”
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If you have any questions or need assistance with your estate planning, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at (760) 444-0943. For more videos and resources, be sure to visit our website and check out our full video library. Secure your estate today with expert guidance.
