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Can anyone write a living trust?

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W

wullie

Guest
I have noticed many write your own living trust programs for sell. Can anyone write a living trust and have it stand up in a court of law, if the need should arise. Does it have to be "checked over" by a lawyer?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Jamie
 


ALawyer

Senior Member
While anyone can write one, the questions are
1. Will it do for you what you intend?
2. Will your heirs be protected or will it create litigation for years.
3. Will you properly transfer the property to the Trust so that the trust governs.
4. If your estate is taxable, will you wind up paying taxes?
5. Will you be confident or worried?
6. Do you also have a Will, power of attorney, etc.?
The computer programs vary in quality. But it is not only what the trust says, it is how you use it. A knowledgeable lawyer is worth the price 99 times out of 100. There was a story in the San Jose Mercury last year in which a smart reporter used a good program and accidently disinherited his step-daughter.

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This is intended as general information only and NOT LEGAL ADVICE. You are not my client, and I have no obligation of any kind to you. To retain a lawyer, go to http://AttorneyPages.com
 

JimStiner

Junior Member
Old question, new answer

The answer is "yes", anyone can write a trust, and everybody that owns a home should write a trust and a pourover Will, but that's not the advice most people get from most estate planners. Legalzoom.com advertises on the radio all the time and encourages people to write a Will. Maybe that is a lost leader for them and once you get to their website, they upsell you to a trust (I don't really know for sure). There are many kinds of trusts, but only two classifications. Statutory and non-statutory. Statutory trusts include Living trusts, charitable remainder trusts, generation skipping trusts, etc. There is really on one non statutory trust, but it has many names; common law trust, pure trust, federal trust, unincorporated business trust, etc. The main difference between the two is that the non-statutory trust provides bulletproof asset protection, whereas the statutory trust can easily be pierced by the courts. I have been helping people set up statutory trusts most of my life and only in the last two years, earnestly began to study the benefits of non-statutory trusts. I continue to provide both kinds of trusts software, but encourage people to compare the differences before the decide which one to write. I non-statutory trusts never has to stand up in court because the court has no jurisdiction over non-statutory trusts.
 

TrustUser

Senior Member
i am fairly familiar with living trusts. could you clue me to a web site where i could read about non-statutory trusts ? and what sorts of differences there are between the two ?
 

JimStiner

Junior Member
Answer for trustuser

The best place to get a lot of information about non statutory trust and listen to many archived radio shows about it is assetpro dot com and estate planning secrets dot com

I hope that helps you.

Jim Stiner
 

anteater

Senior Member
Gee, Jim, thanks for stopping back to pump your websites.

Any other smelly spam you want to deposit here?
 

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