With so many different options available when it comes to creating a comprehensive estate plan, it can be difficult to choose the ones that are right for you. More and more often, individuals choose to utilize trusts as a way to preserve assets and ensure that as many assets as possible can be passed on to heirs. Trusts have a lot of advantages that can be very attractive to individuals of both modest and wealthy means. One of the most well-known advantages of a trust is that it will avoid the probate process after a person dies. That means less of the assets will risk being eaten up by costs associated with the probate process, and assets in the trust are often available to heirs much quicker than were those heirs to have to wait for those assets to pass through probate. However, it is a misconception that all trusts avoid probate, and it is important to remember that when choosing the right type of trust for you.
Trusts and Probate
There are two basic types of trusts that most people utilize: revocable and irrevocable. A revocable trust is more common as it can offer an individual more flexibility with the structure of the trust as well as the assets placed in the trust. As the name suggests, it can also be revoked. On the other hand, irrevocable trusts can rarely be revoked or modified after they have been created. Assets put into them are typically permanently in the control of that trust. The more rigid structure of irrevocable trusts makes them less common, but there are many situations where such a rigid structure can actually be beneficial to you. Both of these types of trusts are created by an individual during his or her lifetime, so they may be referred to as a living trust or inter vivos trust.