When you establish a trust, the trust itself owns the property, which the trustee then manages. The beneficiary aspect of the trust is retained for beneficiaries, just as it sounds. Once the trust is established, you no longer directly own the property; the trust does.
Probate, the court process of validating a will and confirming the executor named in the will, applies only to the property you own at the time of your death, according to the recent article “Revocable Living Trusts: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” from Kiplinger. By transferring all or some of the property you own to a trust, the property is not subject to probate.
However, if you still need access to assets to pay bills and live, you probably don’t want to put all your assets into a trust. This is where a Revocable Living Trust comes in handy. The person creating the trust—the grantor—may also be the trustee and the sole beneficiary. The RLT documents, prepared with the assistance of an estate planning attorney, also provide for a successor trustee in the event that you become incapacitated and wish someone else to have access to the trust.
For some individuals, a Revocable Living Trust may not be the best solution. The RLT allows the grantor complete control of assets in the trust, so the IRS doesn’t consider the RLT to serve as a tax shield. If one of your estate planning goals is to minimize taxes, for instance, you’ll want an Irrevocable Trust.
If privacy is a concern, then a trust is an excellent strategy. Gene Hackman’s estate will remain private unless and until his trust documents become part of the public record. He and his wife wisely placed their assets in trusts, so while the press was able to share the details of their wills, the trust assets and directives remained out of reach.
Even if you’re not a celebrity, nosy neighbors, aggrieved relatives, or scammers can easily access wills filed in the court and cause problems for your heirs.
Probate varies considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so while it can be time-consuming, stressful and expensive in some locales, in others, it is a straightforward process that mainly requires paperwork and patience. The use of trusts also varies with the size of the estate to be protected and depends on whether you plan for long-term care.
There are many kinds of trusts to serve specific goals, including passing wealth to a second spouse without disinheriting children from a first marriage. Others are focused on passing wealth over multiple generations, while still others focus on charitable giving. An experienced estate planning attorney will be able to determine the type of trust that best suits your unique situation.
To learn more about estate planning in the East Valley, Gilbert, Mesa and Queen Creek, schedule your free consultation with Attorney Jake Carlson by using one of the links above.
Reference: Kiplinger (March 26, 2025) “Revocable Living Trusts: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”