Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Tennessee

Re: wills verses trusts

There are more reasons than avoiding probate to justify using a living trust. However, avoiding probate is a good reason. Many attorneys agrue that probate is strightforward and not a problem and in many cases that is true. Generally, on the first death all of the property was owned jointly therefore little passes by probate. However, on the second death everything that does not pass by contract (such as life insurance or annuities) or operation of law (joint ownership) passes by the will.

Everything that passes by will is a public record, so if anyone wants to know what someone inherited they can see the records.

If there are any family disputes a will can be very costly since it is very easy to contest a will. The party contesting the will can tie up the distribution of the estate for years until the other heirs agree to give them something to go away.

And the most overlooked reason for a living trust is the potential for guardianship/conservatorship of your parents. People are living longer but more of them are incompetent for many years. If you have to get a guardianship/conservatorship over your parents the probate court takes over control of their assets. we are seeing average annual legal, acounting, bond and administration fees in excess of $3,000 per year for moderate estates. A living trust would avoid the need for conservatorship of the assets. This would more than pay for the living trust each year for the rest of their lives. Also having all of the assets in a living trust cuts down on family fights over who will be the guardian. If the person only wants it to get control over the assets they will drop it as soon as they find out they will not have control over the assets.

When I can close an estate in days or weeks instead of months without sharing the families financial information with the public, and I can assure the family that their assets will never come under the control of a guardian, why would anyone with the right situation not demand a living trust.

As to whether you can prepare your own. I highly recommend against this. In fact I would recommend that you be careful of most attorneys as well. Just because someone has a computer program to prepare the document and is an attorney does not mean they know what they are doing. It is similar to you getting a book on how to do your own surgery.

Good luck.

Re: wills verses trusts

Legal fees for trusts versus legal fees for probate are approximately the same.

The only reason to do a Living Trust is to avoid probate if probate is really what your parents want to avoid. Probate, however, is an orderly process designed for the purpose of administering estates.