When you start getting serious about having a will, a lot of terms get thrown at you that you may not understand. One of them is revocable living trust. What are the benefits of having a trust versus a will? A credit shelter trust is a smarter way of having your assets immediately available to your loved ones after you die. Unless if you have no real estate and very little property, wiills must go through a court procedure called probate, which is basically a judge verifying that it is your will and must be followed. The processes can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of years. A lawyer must be hired and an executor assigned. The cost of probate usually starts in the range of $10,000 and goes up from there depending on the difficultly of verifying your will.
A credit shelter trust bypasses the probate court and the fees that your loved one might not have. Imagine you have a house that is worth $300,000. When you die you still owed $300,000 on it. Your family would have to come up with the $10,000 for probate fees or the house will be sold and they get nothing. Having a credit shelter trust ensures your family doesn’t have to go through probate. Before writing a will, you should ask a lawyer for revocable living trust information, medicaid trust, and specifically how it impacts your real estate, life insurance policies, and leaving your estate to children under the age of 18. A credit shelter trust is a smart way to help your loved ones financially immediately after you die.
