|
|
 |
|
| Best Practices |
Living Arrangements
Melissa Phipps
05/03/2004
|
I want a living trust. It is a sentence that makes Keith Fevurly, an attorney
and financial planner in Thornton, Colo., bristle. That is because, invariably,
his client’s next sentence begins: “Well, I went to this seminar and….”
 | | LIVING TRUSTS are the most powerful means of controlling our assets should we be struck by a disability that does not prove fatal. |
On
any given day, it is likely that somewhere in this country a trust promoter is
holding a seminar heralding the benefits of living trusts. Even for those of us
whose schedules prohibit attending seminars, the message of the benefits—or
perceived benefits—of having a living trust is not easily avoided. They have
been plugged in newspaper ads, television infomercials, endless streams of junk
mail, and on the cocktail party circuit.What is all of the excitement about?
Also known as revocable inter vivos trusts, living trusts are created to hold
ownership of our assets during our lifetimes and to distribute them after our
deaths. The person setting up the trust—the grantor—is typically the trustee; he
or she names a successor trustee who will control the assets if the grantor
should die or become incapacitated. As opposed to a will, a living trust takes
effect in our lifetime, and the assets placed within it are not subject to
probate, the sometimes lengthy and expensive process of determining a will’s
validity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
