Spiro J. Verras Blog

You may have heard of the many potential benefits of including a trust in your estate plan. Are you worried about probate? A trust can be a great way to avoid it! Are you worried about your beneficiary’s ability to manage an inheritance? A trust can pace and condition distributions to protect the inheritance from being quickly spent away.

If you have decided to establish a trust, one of the big decisions you will need to make is who to appoint as trustee.
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One of the benefits of planning ahead is the ability to anticipate certain consequences and put tools in place to avoid them accordingly. Estate planning, for instance, often involves significant transfers of asset ownership, all of which can have profound tax consequences. Tax liability can take a big chunk of the value away from the assets you wish to transfer and, thus, it is important to be aware of what taxes may come into play in the estate planning realm.
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If you have never heard of a living trust, now is a great time to learn. A useful estate planning tool, a living trust is, aside from a Last Will and Testament, one of the most commonly used mechanisms for transferring assets to your family and loved ones upon your passing away. For a full picture of a living trust, we are going to take a look at the upsides and downsides of a living trust.
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Single parents may know better than most that planning is an essential part of life. Many single parents are, after all, the sole financial provider for their households. Furthermore, single parents are also the sole bearers of caregiving responsibilities or otherwise arranging for caregiving for their children. It is through planning that single parents can help ensure that both financial needs and caregiving responsibilities are effectively met. Read more . . .

Divorce will change your life in ways few other things will. It can mark a fundamental shift in a person’s family structure. As such, it will come as no surprise that divorce can be a lot to handle and add to an already stretched to-do list. Well, there is one item that should be high ranking on that to-do list that you may have left out. Update your estate plan.
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Are you or a loved one planning on leaving your home to move to a nursing home? It is a big decision, but one that can be in everyone’s best interests. Nursing homes provide a heightened level of care and comfort that can be difficult for caregivers to provide in the home. After or during the decision making process regarding the nursing home move, the topic of what should be done with the house will probably come up, as it should. There is so much tied up in a home. There are memories, money, and so much more.
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When you think of a will and a trust, you may not even think to compare the two. A will is probably the most well-known estate planning tool and trusts remain unknown. After all, if you have a will in place to direct how you want your assets distributed after you die, why would you need a trust? The truth is, however, that trusts have many uses and many benefits which vary based on the type of trust selected and how it is utilized. A living trust, for instance, may accomplish the same goal of a will in setting forth how a person’s assets are distributed upon their death, but a will and a living trust are two distinct estate planning tools. What are the differences between the two and why do these differences matter?

Will Versus Living Trust

A last will and testament, more commonly referred to as simply a “will,” is a legal document which sets forth a person’s assets and designates who should be the beneficiary of said assets upon the person’s death.
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If there are certain assets you want to ensure pass to particular people after you die, estate planning is essential. For instance, most people want to leave their biggest asset, which is often their home, to their children. There are actually a number of ways you can do this and we will discuss some of them here.

Leaving Your Home to Your Children

While most people think of a will as the central mechanism for property distribution after a person passes away, it is actually just one of a number of options. A will can be useful for property distribution, but it does have its downsides.
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Estate planning is important for everyone. While there may be a pervasive misconception that estate planning is only for the old or for the rich, this is dangerously false. Estate planning is important because even if you do not have assets of great financial value, it is likely you have assets rich in sentimental value that you would want left in the hands of the right people. Furthermore, estate planning is important for all of us because it goes far beyond planning for asset distribution. A comprehensive estate plan also contains provisions for incapacity planning.
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Estate planning is important for everyone. This is true regardless of wealth, or lack thereof. Many people operate under the misconception that estate planning is only for those assets that hold substantial financial value and, thus, only those people with assets of substantial value need estate planning. There are a number of big reasons why everyone should estate plan regardless of an asset or income level. After all, estate planning can address your health care wishes and incapacity planning.
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A revocable trust is named so because it can be easily altered, amended, or, of course, revoked. This flexibility is one of the many appealing features of a revocable trust and its benefits make it an attractive addition to many estate plans. To establish a revocable trust, the trust settlor, or grantor, creates the trust and funds it. The trust is then managed by the trustee for the benefit of the trust beneficiaries and in accordance with the terms set forth in the governing trust document. One of the key benefits of a revocable trust is that it will avoid probate.