Has Anybody Set Up a Trust?

[Fishindude77]

Yeah, no DYI for me.
I have no issue paying a good attorney a few $$ to do something important like this.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Yup I used a DIY software for $79 (ie, Quicken, Legal Zoom, etc), easy as pie. Pay an attorney $2000 or $3000 who'll use the same software then print out a copy for you to take home and he/she will profit $1900 or $2900.

[EasyMoney00]

I've come to the conclusion that whatever you recommend, do the opposite.

Buy once, cry once!

[SavingBucks]

My in-laws and my parents both had living trusts. Estate resolution was extremely easy in both instances. My DH was executor for his folks, and I was for mine. No probate and no family squabbles. In DH's case, properties transferred within the family, and in my case, I sold my parents' home and properties. I did not need an attorney to accomplish anything. This is in California.

[kork13]

My in-laws and my parents both had living trusts. Estate resolution was extremely easy in both instances. My DH was executor for his folks, and I was for mine. No probate and no family squabbles. In DH's case, properties transferred within the family, and in my case, I sold my parents' home and properties. I did not need an attorney to accomplish anything. This is in California.

This is the biggest reason for trusts IMO -- it makes your handling your death, at least from a financial/legal standpoint, dramatically easier for your heirs/executor to deal with. Clear instructions for how your assets are to be dealt with, and a mechanism to have those instructions complied with outside the probate process.

Right now, I only have our wills setup to establish testamentary trusts to handle our assets for our kids until they're of age. However, a testamentary trust doesn't skip probate. In the future, I fully intend to create a living trust to take care of that piece.

[MonkeyMama]

Yes, we've had a trust since our 20s. We already had substantial worth in real estate, so it was useful to us at that age. A trust is generally more cost effective and simplifies things for your heirs. The catch of course is that this only works if you have someone you can trust to handle your affairs. Probate is expensive in my state and can take years. With a trust, you can immediately start liquidating assets.

My parents' elderly neighbor, his wife recently passed away. I don't know the details but I guess it's been a probate nightmare. (I've heard these stories before from surviving kids, but never from a surviving spouse. I don't know what the deal with that is, maybe his name wasn't on the title of their house?? Or that's how it goes when your house is worth $2 Mil? This is in extreme HCOLA). The neighbor scared my Dad straight and he got his trust set up a few weeks ago (at 73). I was completely horrified and in disbelief that my parents didn't have trusts. What!? That was a freight train I did not see coming. They probably made me an executor in my 20s and I just remembered it that they had done things right. & then never thought about it again. That's years of my life that would have been gone to probate and all that red tape. & likely $100,000-ish in probate fees. I really dodged a bullet.

Note: I don't personally care about the fees. I am more concerned about how I probably would have had to quit my job to handle probate, but wouldn't have access to my inheritance in the meantime. Mostly concerned about all the stress and work re: probate and what that would have entailed. But it illustrates the point of how penny wise and pound foolish people tend to be re: a $500 professional trust. Kind of want to blame the lawyer too for not spelling it out, but I know my Dad too well.