Why You Need a Will Even If You Have a Living Trust

The primary reason most people opt to base their estate plan on a Revocable Living Trust is to avoid probate when they pass away. A fully-funded Living Trust allows your assets to be distributed to your loved ones without the time, expense, or loss of privacy involved in a probate proceeding.

However, the key to avoiding probate with a Living Trust is to have a fully-funded trust at the time of your death. If property owned by you individually is left out of your Trust at the time of your death, your Successor Trustee won't have the authority to access it, much less distribute it to your Trust beneficiaries. And the truth is that many, many Living Trusts are either unfunded or partially funded. For whatever reason, people often just don't transfer all of their assets to their Living Trust.

What happens to the property that's left out of your Trust when you die? If it's titled in your individual name, it will likely need to be probated. This can happen in one of two ways: with a Will, and without a Will. If you have a special kind of Will - called a Pour Over Will - designed to work with a Living Trust, then the property not owned by your Trust at the time of your death will be directed into your Trust via the probate process, where your Successor Trustee can then distribute it to your beneficiaries according to your instructions.

Without a Will, however, your non-trust property will be distributed to your family members based on a schedule prescribed by state law. So not only will your property have to be probated, it may end up in the hands of people you didn't want to receive it.

The bottom line? If you have a Revocable Living Trust, it needs to be accompanied by a Pour Over Will. Your estate planning attorney can help you put both of these documents in place.

Robert J. Kulas, P.A. is a leading provider of expert estate and financial planning in Port St. Lucie, FL. Our firm is dedicated to providing you with quality estate planning resources, so you can become familiar with all of the existing options.Through the use of Living Trusts, Wills (simple & complex), Powers of Attorney, Living Wills, Irrevocable Trusts, Family Limited Partnerships, and Charitable Gifting Strategies, our firm helps families preserve their wealth for future generations, minimize estate taxes, and avoid the expense and nightmare of probate.
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