The benefits of doing a living trust and transferring your assets into the trust during life are many. A primary benefit is that your estate will circumvent the probate process when you pass, if you do things right, saving your loved ones many months of administrative burdens, delays, attorney’s fees and other costs. You also…
DetailsThe concept of a trust is difficult for many people to grasp because a trust is a concept, and therefore is intangible. Another intangible concept that is more familiar, and therefore seems easier to understand, is a corporation. Corporations have some similarities to trusts and, therefore, provide a helpful comparison. A quick look at the…
DetailsAfter much anticipation and delay, Illinois families can finally utilize the ABLE Account Program. The ABLE Account Program (15 ILCS 505/16.6) allows individuals receiving SSI and other means-tested programs to open up a bank account (similar to a checking account) which does not count against the means-tested program’s resource limit. A means tested program is…
DetailsAn expansion from Do I Need a Will? I have done a series of articles explaining estate planning on a spectrum from simplest and cheapest to more complex and more expensive. Generally, that spectrum flows from planning how assets are owned so that they will pass on death with beneficiary designations, payable on death designations…
Details“These times, they are a changin’” is the famous line by Bob Dylan. It was an anthem for the 1960’s and early 1970’s. It seemed pretty profound to us who lived through those times. Today we deal with more mundane things, like estate planning, and times have changed. The number of people who have never…
DetailsIn my high school psychology class, my history teacher came and spoke to us one day about his disabled son. He read to us a short story in which he compared having a disabled child to a trip to Europe. The story began with a couple planning to go to Italy to tour all of…
DetailsAfter considering Who Needs a Will? The probate process can be avoided while still maintaining a very high degree of certainty that your estate will be handled by the persons who choose, the way you want it handled, by using a living Trust. Unlike a Will, where the job is done when the Will is…
DetailsExpanding on Do-It-Yourself Estate Planning: Keeping it Simple: Do-it-yourself estate planning is simple and cheap. By using a combination of beneficiary designations, payable on death designations and joint ownership, you can pass most of your assets on directly to the people you want. This simple estate planning can work well between spouses and for very small…
DetailsAfter doing Estate Planning for many years, a pattern emerges in the questions that people ask (and statements that people make). For instance, people often say something like, “I just want a simple Will.” The statement begs the question: why do you want a simple Will? The reality is that people often don’t know the…
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