Living trusts have many important benefits and you should strongly consider talking with an experienced attorney to find out if living trust is a good tool to include in your estate plan. While many people do not realize the significant advantages of living trusts or think that they only need to create a trust if they have substantial assets, the reality is that living trusts can be important for many different people to make. 
Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates will provide you with guidance on whether it could benefit you to create a living trust. We can work closely with you to understand what benefits a living trust could have in your particular circumstance and can help you to compare the advantages of a living trust with other estate planning tools. We can also provide you with assistance in creating a legally valid trust document for your living trust and setting up the trust so you can reap the desired advantages.
To find out more about how our firm can help you with the process of creating a living trust, give us a call today.
What are Living Trusts Used For?
Living trusts can be used for many purposes. When you create these trusts, you can retain control over the assets that you put into the trust during your lifetime, while also ensuring that the trust assets will be safe if something should happen to you. And you can also facilitate the timely transfer of trust assets to heirs or beneficiaries after your death.
Some of the different things that living trusts are used for include:
- Safeguarding trust assets: You can name yourself as the trustee of the living trust and manage the assets while you are alive and healthy. But, you can also name a backup trustee who will be given authority to manage assets as soon as you become incapacitated. This allows you to select a responsible person capable of managing trust assets, thus helping to keep those assets safe even in the event that something should happen and you become unable to manage them on your own.
- Facilitating the transfer of wealth outside of probate: This is one of the biggest reasons why people create living trusts. When you make a living trust, the money and property you put into the trust can transfer through the trust administration process instead of the probate process. This is more private, because the trust administration process does not involve going to court — where court records are created — whereas the probate process does involve court proceedings. It is also faster and more cost effective to transfer money through the trust administration process than the probate process, and your heirs or beneficiaries will thus be able to get more of your assets more quickly. This can be important if your loved ones need the inheritance you’re providing them because you are no longer providing them with support.
There may also be other reasons why you might wish to create a living trust that are specific to your situation. That’s why it is so important that you work with an experienced attorney who can discuss your goals with you, analyze your particular situation, and help you to make fully informed choices about what type of tools you should use as you plan for the future.
Getting Help with Living Trusts
Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates will provide the advice that you need to determine if a living trust is the best tool for you to use to accomplish your estate planning goals or if there are other tools that might be preferable. We can work closely with you to create the trust document or other documents you need for your estate plan and to ensure that you have taken the right steps to protect your family and your assets.
To find out more about how our firm can help you with all aspects of the estate planning and asset protection processes, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at 860-548-1000 or contact us online to get your personalized plan created with help from a compassionate and knowledgeable legal team.
Mr. Nirenstein is licensed to practice before the courts of the State of Connecticut and the United States District Court. He is a member of the Connecticut and Hartford County Bar Associations, and the Estate and Probate, Elder Law, Business Law and Real Estate Sections of the Connecticut Bar Association.
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