Living Will & Trusts Lawyers serving Redford & Southeastern Michigan

If you live in Michigan, and you die without a Will (intestate), the State of Michigan decides what happens to your property and who will handle your affairs. This person may, or may not, be a family member. The intestate statute distributes your assets according to a strict formula.

If you have a spouse and children, your estate doesn’t necessarily just pass to your spouse; a certain portion passes to your spouse and any balance passes to your children. If you don’t have a spouse or children, it passes on to siblings or other relatives that you may not want to share in your estate.

Maybe you wanted to leave something to a charity, a friend or a favorite niece. If you don’t have a Will, it won’t happen.

Although any competent adult, with any assets whatsoever, should have a Will; you have two particularly important reasons for getting a Will drafted; your children. A Will not only sets forth who you want your assets to go to; it also appoints guardians and conservators for your children.

If something happens to both you and your husband and you don’t have a Will, the Probate Court decides who will care for your children and handle their finances.

Although your sister might be the perfect person to take care of your kids, she may not be the right person to handle their money. You know these things better than anyone else, so it is important that your wishes be made known to the court. The best way to do this is by making a Will.

You can even include instructions on how you want your children to be raised; for instance, you can specify that you want them to go to a certain school, attend summer camp or even that you don’t want a particular person to become their guardian or conservator.

The benefits of having a Will far outweigh any negatives of having a Will.

The problem with this is that you may forget or overlook an asset and that asset will still have to go through the probate court and will be distributed according to the intestate statute.

If you are holding your assets jointly with one or more of your children, expecting them to divide them up equally among all of your children upon your death; well, let’s just say our children don’t always get along as well as we might like. If you put your house into one child’s name, he is under no legal obligation to share it with any of his siblings when you die.

He can do anything he wants with it and the temptation to keep it for himself may be too great. If you add a child’s name to your deed, you are giving them a portion of your house as soon as that deed is recorded. If they decide they want to cash in, they could force you to sell the house and split the proceeds with them.

In addition, any assets you hold jointly with another person become part of that person’s assets. If they are sued, creditors could come after those assets to satisfy their claims even though you don’t owe the money.

Not really. Many people think that probate runs tens of thousands of dollars and can take years. This is generally not the case. Probate of an average estate under $500,000.00 should cost between $3,000.00 and $5,000.00 and take less than 2 years.

Heirs can obtain most of their inheritance within the first six months and receive their final distribution when the estate is closed. The attorney takes care of all the “hassle” and you are assured that your wishes are carried out as you direct the way they are spelled out in your Will.

If you really want to avoid probate, the most risk-free way to do this is to create a revocable trust and place all of your assets into the trust. You retain complete control over everything you place into the trust, but when you die, your assets are distributed by your trustee to the beneficiaries named in the trust without having to go through the probate court.

A revocable trust is a document that is sort of like setting up a corporation just for your assets. You make the living trust the owner of all of your assets and you are the trustee. You still have complete control over those assets; you can sell them, give them away or do anything else you want with them.

Upon your death, all of the assets still owned by the living trust are distributed to your beneficiaries according to your directions which are a part of the living trust. Living Trusts allow you to distribute to your beneficiaries without having to go though probate, but they also allow you to set up provisions for beneficiaries who are minors or who may not be able to handle their own financial affairs.

Let’s say you would like to provide for a grandchild’s education. You can set up a provision in your trust that provides funds for college as well as a monthly allowance if you wish. You can set up a special needs trust for a disabled child or even make provisions for a beloved pet.

Trusts are very useful estate planning tools that can solve a myriad of problems and provide wonderful benefits for your family.

Many people think you have to have a very large estate to have a living trust, but almost anyone can benefit from having a trust, it is a very valuable tool. But aren’t Living Trusts really expensive?

That depends. Most of our living trusts fall into the $1,500.00 to $3,500.00 range. Creating a living trust is usually less expensive than probating your estate.

No problem. Your living trust is basically just an extension of yourself. You can sell your house and buy a condo. You can sell your house and go on a world cruise, or buy an RV and travel the countryside.

You can do anything with your assets that you could before you placed them in your living trust.

Living Trust law becomes more and more complicated over the years. There are courts, laws, provisions, and at times, other trustees to deal with; which can lead to a lot of hassle on your part.

It is usually in your best interest to get a trust administrator to handle your trust for you. He or she will ensure that provisions set forth in your trust are met.

You can create a Special Needs Trust. With a Special Needs Trust, you ensure that your disabled loved one is taken care of. You can put in provisions for the law to follow for to ensure that your child is provided for.

A special needs trust is specifically designed to put funds aside for your disabled child without jeopardizing her governmental benefits. It provides funds for needs that are not provided for by the child’s governmental benefits.

The funds are only available to the child to supplement her governmental benefits and are specifically barred from replacing those benefits. They can be used for travel, supplementary food or clothing and other extraordinary expenses that the governmental benefits do not meet.

We do create pet trusts! We either include them in the estate planning documents we create for you, or we can make one and add it to your current estate planning documents.

See our Michigan Pet Trusts page for more information.

We would recommend that you put a provision in your living trust that provides for your child to receive a certain amount per month and then receive lump sum amounts as he reaches certain ages.

For instance, in your living trust, you can direct that he receive $500.00 per month with lump sum payments at 25, 30 and 35. You can give your trustee the discretion to give him more under certain circumstances, like buying a house or extraordinary medical expenses.