Trusts Vs. Wills

In general if property has a title and the owner dies it will take a Probate to transfer title to the person who inherits UNLESS there is already in place a will substitute, as for example, if the property is held in joint tenancy or in a Payable on Death account. See Will or Trust Substitutes

Probate is the process in which a will is taken to court and the property distributed according to the will. There are three problems with probate:

1. Probate is usually expensive. Probate fees have come down from the "old days" in which lawyers charged the greater of an hourly rate or six or seven percent of the probate estate. Clients are free to bargain with attorneys over probate fees. Lawyers are free to charge a lot. (The Probate Court in Nevada must approve fees over $3,500, but generally Courts are liberal in approving attorney bills.) Even so, probate is usually time consuming and hugely expensive compared to a trust, especially for estates over $100,000. Few people can handle a probate proceeding without hiring an a lawyer. (Note: an executor is under no obligation to use the attorney who drafted the will to help with probate. We welcome calls asking how much we will charge to do a probate and have listed our fees below. If you compare our probate prices to those of other attorneys I believe you will find we are more than affordable, we are the low cost, high quality probate lawyers in town.)
2. Probate is time consuming.
   Even for uncontested probates it take months for the process to be completed if the estate is worth more than $100,000, and even if your lawyer moves as fast as possible. In addition, the sale of real estate through the probate process can sometimes be time consuming and expensive. (If you hire us to do a probate and there is real estate in the estate we will talk to you about the possibility of having the probate court transfer the real estate directly to one or more heirs--a much simpler process.)
3. Probate is public. Probate records are open to the public. Leave your 19 year old daughter $500,000 in your will and that is a public record.

Trusts Can Proceed Quickly & Privately & Can Avoid Probate

In contrast, a trust provides for the transfer of property outside the court system. Many people can handle the distribution of property in a trust without an attorney. But, if the services of an attorney is desired, the attorney could help out with much less work and should charge a lot less. Trust transfers can proceed quickly and privately after death.

Avoiding Probate:
Probate can be effectively avoided with such a trust if the client(s) keep in mind certain rules, the most important of which are:

1. All property with a title such as real estate and financial accounts must be titled in the name of the trust.
2. At the time the trust is set up assets with a title such as real estate and financial accounts must be re-titled in the name of the trust.
3. When assets with a title are later acquired they must be titled in the name of the trust.

*Please see what we charge for trusts below.

Trusts for Other Purposes:

In addition to avoiding probate, there are two other reasons some people have trusts.

Wealthy people concerned with federal estate taxes may bave a trust to minimize federal estate taxes. For 2024 there is no federal estate tax on estates worth no more than $13,600,000. There is no federal inheritance tax and neither Nevada nor California charges an estate or inheritance tax. It is always a political issue whether to raise or lower this federal estate tax exemption so the law could change in the future. However, since we don't know what future changes will be I believe that families with less than $13,600,000 should not spend money trying to creates trusts to avoid federal estate taxes, but should try to keep up on future federal estate tax law changes. 

Another reason for a trust is to protect against creditors. Traditionally American law has no problem with a donor (such as a parent) giving money in trust to a donee (such as an adult child) on the condition that the gift is free of creditor claims against the donee. So, for example, in a trust we write for parents, they may provide that their child may not receive all of their money when they die until the child is, for example, 30 years old, but that the successor trustee can advance money to the child before that age for educational or support purposes. That would protect the adult child's money until the age of 30 if a creditor had a claim against the child. 

BUT:  Traditionally American law did not allow a person to put their money into a trust to protect themselves against their own creditors. Thus, some rich Americans put their money into trusts in various countries that refuse to honor American Court orders. Seeing a lucrative opportunity, lawyers in Nevada and some other states created laws setting up asset protection trusts. Such asset protection trusts have not been fully tested in the courts yet. In addition, such asset protection are very complicated to set up and maintain. We do not write asset protection trusts. 

Some Attorneys Work With Financial Investment Firms

It is important to note that some attorneys work with a financial investment firm and that the chief interest of this team is to steer you into investing with them. Our firm does not offer investment advice or sell investment products. If we draft your trust we are only interested in helping you avoid probate and plan who gets your money and property when you die. How you invest your money is your business.

People under 18 years of age are not considered legally competent to make contracts. Wills that anticipate minors may inherit money usually incorporate a provision providing that a specific person will hold the minor's money in trust until the minor reaches 18 or an older age. The provision may also contain guidelines as to what the money can be spent on for the minor's benefit until the minor is given the money. In the situation just mentioned these are trust provisions within a will. In other situations a trust document, not a will, controls the minor's money.

Likewise, if there is an adult child who is not financially responsible child, a trust can provide for a subsequent trustee to handle that person's money. Also, as discussed below, the trust can protect the financially irresponsible adult child from creditors with respect to the money from the parents.

With modern medical care, more and more people are living long enough to suffer from considerable decline in their mental ability or to incur substantial mental disability. According to one study 12% of people over 65 and 50% of people over 80 have Alzheimer's Disease. Or, if a person's mind is still working 100%, the person still might be unable to manage his or her own affairs if he or she has physical problems with vision, hearing or being exhausted from medical treatment, for example, "chemo-brain" from undergoing chemotherapy.

Trusts & A Successor Trustee

Estate Planning Trusts (will substitutes) almost always start off with the person setting up the trust being the trustee (manager of the trust assets). The trust always names a successor trustee (and alternative successor trustees if the first choice successor trustee can not or will not serve.) The hope when we set up the trust is that the person setting up the trust who is the original trustee will remain trustee until he or she dies and only then will the successor trustee take over. This hopes assumes that the person setting up the trust will remain in good physical and mental health right up until the time of death. (Most of us hope to live to a ripe old age in great health and then suddenly die, say while playing tennis at age 90.) Unfortunately, short of suicide, we don't have a choice as to how we die. We don't know if we will say a long goodbye as Ronald Reagan did with Alzheimer's or die suddenly of a heart attack.

Specifying A Trigger For A Successor Trustee To Take Over

Whenever we draft a trust we ask our clients if they want to specify a trigger short of death that will allow the successor trustee to take over management of the trust assets. Clients in their 40's and 50's rarely do while clients in their 70's and older usually do. Here are the two basic options:

1. If there is no trigger other than death for removing the original trustee, the only mechanism for their heirs to take away control of the assets of such a person is the traditional route of going into Guardianship Court and proving that "dad" is incompetent to handle his own affairs and asking the court to set up a guardianship over the estate. This is an expensive process that involves annual accountings and reports to the Court.
2. Our clients can use the trust document as a way to enable trusted children or other relatives to take over the management of their finances if there is a fear that the assets will be lost or stolen due to mental or physical decline. Some typical conditions for involuntary removing "mom" as the trustee of her own estate are:
   1. One trusted younger relative, or a majority of named trusted relatives can replace "mom" as the trustee of her property simply be delivering a letter to "mom" stating that they are doing so.
   2. Same as above but, in addition, a medical doctor must give a letter or affidavit stating that the person is incapable of managing his or her own affairs.
   3. Other varieties are possible.

We find that with a lot of couples, the two of them figure that as long as they are both alive they will somehow manage and don't want to make it easy for their adult children or other trusted relatives to take over managing their assets while they are both alive. However, they figure that after one of them dies then they want to make it easy for an adult child or other relative to take over managing the trust assets if the only one of them still alive starts to show signs of mental deterioration.

In conclusion, most of our clients recognize the possibility that they may live long enough to experience mental and physical decline that could cause them to lose their property to scam artists or through neglect. Most of our clients want a simple, out of court mechanism to allow their children or other younger relatives to take over managing their property when the time is right. This is one big advantage of a trust over a will.

Note: The above discussion concerns management of property, not management of medical care. All of us should have a "Health Care Power of Attorney" which specifies our care choices when the diagnosis is bad and which says who should make health care decisions for us when we are unconscious or not mentally able to. We write Health Care Powers of Attorney for all of our trust and will clients w/o additional charge. In addition, you can write your own. See Health Care Power of Attorney.

Spendthrift Trust

Nevada law allows a "spendthrift trust" to be set up for the benefit of another person and allows for this money to be protected against present or future creditors of the person being given the money. (However, if creditors already have a claim to the money being transferred, this transfer may be attacked. For more information see Using Trusts To Protect Assets.

You should always consider buying insurance to protect against liability. But insurance companies may be able to get out of paying if what you state in your application is no longer true. For example, you insure the house you live in, then you move into a better house and rent out the old house. If the insurance on the house says owner occupied and the house isn't owner occupied, maybe the insurance company gets out of paying a claim.

Unfortunately, there is no legal way to place your assets offshore out of reach of the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). If you are a U.S. citizen you owe taxes on your income even if earned abroad. If anyone offers you a plan to keep money safe from the IRS (when you owe the IRS money) they are scamming you and/or inviting you to break the law. (You will be amazed at how much money and time federal prosecutors have when they decide to go after someone.)

In contrast to trying to hide your money from the I.R.S., tax lawyers and I.R.S. "enrolled agents" can negotiate with the I.R.S. over past due money or advise you how to minimize future taxes. We will be glad to refer you to a good "enrolled agent" authorized to negotiate with the I.R.S.

As mentioned above, for 2024 there is no federal estate on estate under $13,600,000. 

The idea of a special needs trust is existing federal law which requires Medicaid recipients to "spend down" to be eligible for Medicaid. Federal law allows a special needs trust in some circumstances to be set up so that the beneficiary can tap into this trust for a large variety of needs, but the money in this trust doesn't have to be spent down for continued Medicaid eligibility. A special needs trust should be written to take into account the new "Obamacare" and previously written special needs trusts should be reviewed in light of the new "Obamacare laws." We do not write special needs trusts but will be happy to refer you to competent attorneys who do.