Inter Vivos, PLLC
(855) 335-1060
  • Home
  • Clients
    • Our Services >
      • Planning For People
      • Planning For Causes
      • Planning For Assets
      • Planning For Business
  • Advisors
    • Our Advisor Program
  • Attorneys
    • Our Planning Team
  • About Us
    • Our Media
  • News
    • Our Blogs
    • EstateMents 2019 >
      • EstateMents Blog

Has Your Estate Plan Taken a Shower Lately?

1/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Don't get us wrong- wills have been around for hundreds of years and are still important estate planning tools. Without a will, a person's estate goes through the probate process and the court decides who receives all of the property according to the laws of intestacy. Often that means that property is likely to go places where you didn't foresee it going or didn't want it to go. The benefit of a will is that it allows the court to actually consider how you want your property distributed. But what most people don't realize is that their estate still goes through probate.
A will can be contested fairly easily and if it is, the court proceedings can drag on in a contested probate setting. So, overall- a will alone lets you determine how to distribute your estate but it rarely makes the probate process any cheaper or any less public.

So when most people draft a will thinking that it is going to meet their estate planning needs, most of the time they are mistaken. There are better options available nowadays to avoid tax liability, avoid probate, and avoid will contests. So the average person in addition to their will should have additional estate planning in the form of a trust or at the very least nonprobate transfers such as payable on death designations. Otherwise, a will based plan could very easily become far more expensive than a trust ever would be.

Even the most advanced will based plans are going to have to get through probate somehow, while a trust based plan will avoid it. And the drafting of advanced will based plans rivals if not exceeds the costs of a similar trust based plan, because of the personalization required to make the will perform the functions you would want.

So, while a will is far better than nothing, if you're looking at doing your estate plan chances are you want a trust based plan, (which by the way, includes a will). Make sure you know what you’re getting into either way...

At Inter Vivos, we specialize in all forms of estate planning, both will and trust based plans. Contact us at (801) 477-1570 to determine what kind of plan you need.


0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Trust Meme Blog

    Trust Meme is written and maintained by the member attorneys at Inter Vivos, PLLC as a resource for families to better understand the importance of proper planning and their planning experience.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Asset Protection Planning
    Business Planning
    Estate Planning
    Gun Trust Planning
    Legacy Planning
    Probate/ Estate Administration
    Tax Planning

Practice Areas

Family Estate Planning
Advanced Estate Planning
Specialty Estate Planning
​Professional Planning

Links

Client Login
Advisor Login
Attorney Login
Videos
E-Books
Contact Us
Picture

Our Locations

Salt Lake, UT
Detroit, MI
Las Vegas, NV
New York, NY
Boise, ID
Seattle, WA
Chicago, IL
Phoenix, AZ
Honolulu, HI
Miami, FL
Atlanta, GA
Houston, TX
San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Washington, DC
Inter Vivos, PLLC (c) 2014-2021