Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

You can create a trust during life or it can be created by Will upon death. This is called a testamentary trust. it would seem without seeing the Will that what the attorney said was correct.

No idea if it is correct in your father's case.

I doubt you are quoting the will directly. The exact language may shed some light on the authenticity of the statement.

Without seeing the documents, its hard to say. If the advice was given by a competent estates and trusts attorney, then the attorney is probably correct as he/she had the chance to review the documents.

If a person creates a trust in his lifetime, then it is accompanied by what is called a pour-over will. The will pours-over an assets into the trust at death. However, if that is the case then there has to be a trust document somewhere. The trust documents are not filed with the court so you will have to look in the places where the deceased kept his important papers - a fireproof safe or a safe deposit box maybe.

A will can create a testamentary trust but that is something your father would create for someone else to be the beneficiary of once your father died. In that case, the will would set forth who is the trustee and beneficiary and the trust terms.

I am fairly sure that the will did not merely say that there is a trust and nothing more unless this is some kind of do-it-yourself thing hand-crafted by your father. So you either need to review the whole document or if you do not understand it then take it to a probate attorney for review.

A more fundamental question is who the will names as trustee and personal representative and are you a beneficiary under the will and/or trust? The personal representative and trustee will be be concerned with administering the estate and putting the assets into to trust to manage for the beneficiaries. If you are a beneficiary, then you should be notified of any trust and its terms by the trustee. If you are the trustee/personal representative, then you probably need to hire a probate attorney to assist you.