Spokane Revocable Living Trust Lawyers
A revocable living trust allows you to transfer legal title in your property to a separate legal entity (the trust). You designate a trustee to manage that property for the beneficiaries identified in the trust, who hold “equitable title” to the property and will receive full legal title after your passing. In this way, you can hand down property to others without it having to go through probate. Your house, your bank accounts, investment property, and all sorts of valuable assets can be placed in a revocable living trust. You can continue to manage and benefit from trust property during your lifetime, and you can add to, amend or revoke your trust at any time. Revocable living trusts therefore provide tremendous flexibility while accomplishing several goals of estate planning: protecting your property and your access to it during your lifetime, distributing your assets according to your wishes, and avoiding probate. Call the experienced Spokane revocable living trust lawyers at Moulton Law Offices to discuss how a revocable living trust might be right for you.
Advantages of a Revocable Living Trust
In our experience helping homeowners and families in Spokane with comprehensive estate planning services, if any of the following apply to you, then you would likely benefit from including a revocable living trust in your estate plan:
- You own a home or other titled assets that you’ll want to pass on to others after you are gone
- You want to avoid court interference in your property at death or during any period of incapacity
- You like the idea of bringing all your assets together under one plan
- You own property in other states and wish to avoid having to go through probate in every state where you own property
A revocable living trust allows you to transfer property with the least involvement of the courts. A will has to be submitted to court and proven valid as part of the probate. If the probate is supervised rather than unsupervised, every step the executor takes must be approved by the court, and it can take a year or more before heirs can receive their inheritance under a will. In a revocable living trust, title to the property has already passed out of the deceased’s estate, so there is nothing to probate. Beneficiaries of a revocable living trust can receive their inheritance much more quickly than heirs under a will.
A will also becomes a public court record once it has been admitted to probate, and anyone who is interested can get a look at it. Since a revocable living trust is never probated, it can be kept as private and confidential as the trustor, trustee, and beneficiaries wish. No outside party need ever know the contents of the estate or how it was distributed.
Management of trust property is given over to the trustee named in the trust. When you create a revocable living trust, however, you can name yourself as the trustee initially. This way you can continue to control and manage your assets as you see fit and benefit from them during your lifetime. It is only when you die or if you become incapacitated that a successor trustee takes over the management of the trust property. In this way, having a revocable living trust is like having a built-in guardian to manage your trust property for you when you can’t do it yourself.
A revocable living trust can also be a valuable part of your business succession plan. Management or ownership of the business can transfer immediately upon your passing, so your business carries on according to your wishes without any disruption.
Comprehensive Trust Estate Planning in Spokane
A revocable living trust is only one kind of trust that might be included in your estate plan. Washington probate and trust law recognizes many other kinds of trusts that can serve specific purposes, such as providing for a person with special needs without compromising their ability to receive government benefits, avoiding income taxes on income earned from trust assets, establishing or maintaining Medicaid eligibility, avoiding estate taxes and more. Consult with your estate planning attorney regarding whether you might benefit from having one or more irrevocable trusts in addition to a revocable living trust.
Contact Moulton Law Offices for Help With Revocable Living Trusts in Spokane
For help with revocable living trusts as part of a comprehensive estate planning process, let the attorneys at Moulton Law Offices advise you and assist you with whatever you need. Call our experienced Spokane revocable living trust lawyers today.
