The Value Of Putting Your Financial Accounts In A Trust
Your financial accounts can be placed into a trust. Doing so offers a wealth of benefits. Many of these benefits can make it easier for your beneficiaries to receive the funds within these accounts.
By going over the value of putting financial accounts in a trust, and speaking with a Florida estate planning lawyer at Millhorn Elder Law Planning Group today you may have an easier time developing a trust that satisfies your goals.
What Is A Trust?
A trust is a legal arrangement in which the ownership of certain assets goes to a trustee. This trustee is responsible for ensuring that these assets are used in the ways you have specified, as per your will and trust documents.
Here’s a good example of the above: if you have a house that you would like to give to your daughter, you can put this house in a trust. The house will no longer belong to you – although, in most cases, you can still live in it – it will belong to the trustee. This trustee will give the house to your daughter, after you pass away.
You can put a house in a trust. And, you can put many other assets into a trust. These assets include things like furniture, family heirlooms, electronics, cars, and financial accounts; along with many others.
What Is The Value Of Putting Your Financial Accounts In A Trust?
The value of putting your financial accounts in a trust is generally rooted in four things:
- If you place your financial accounts in a trust, they won’t need to go through probate.
- By not going through probate, your creditors will, in most cases, not be able to access the funds in them.
- Your beneficiaries will get the money in these accounts much faster, due to avoiding probate.
- Probate is costly and, by avoiding probate, the money in your accounts won’t be used to pay for probate.
Just as an example, if you have a savings account with $900,000, and you put this savings account into a trust, the entities you owe money to will not, in many cases, be able to access any of this money.
On top of that, probate can take as long as a year – or more, in some cases. But, if you put these accounts into a trust, your beneficiaries will receive them right after your passing. None of the funds within these accounts will have been drained to pay for probate, either, which means that your beneficiaries may receive the full value of those accounts.
How Can You Put Your Financial Accounts In A Trust?
You can put your financial accounts in a trust by:
- Retitling your financial accounts in the name of your trust.
- List the trust as a beneficiary for those accounts.
Other methods may need to be employed, depending on your estate planning goals. For this reason, if you would like to put your financial accounts in a trust, you might want to work with a lawyer who can help you do so.
Speak With A Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Today
If you need help developing a trust, you may want to work with someone who can help. Speak with a Florida estate planning lawyer today and we will help you move forward with your trust-related goals.
Sources:
law.cornell.edu/wex/trust
leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0736/0736.html