Cloggers

Who should be named as beneficiaries, and who should serve as trustee?

You and your spouse are typically the primary beneficiaries of the trust with, perhaps, your children and grandchildren as beneficiaries after your deaths.

Typically, you serve as your own trustee (or co-trustee with, say, your spouse or child or a financial institution), meaning you retain control of your assets as long as you are able to manage your own affairs. If you become unable to manage your own affairs, another trustee, known as the successor trustee, takes over.

When you die, the trust becomes irrevocable, and the trustee distributes the assets as the living trust documents specifie or keeps them in trust for the beneficiaries, if that is what you have arranged.

Who should I get to draft a revocable living trust and how much will it cost?

A good, custom trust should be drafted by a skilled estate planning lawyer, not the real estate lawyer who helped you when you bought your house and not by the person pushing trusts as the only solution to all of your estate planning concerns.

You can draft a revocable living trust and pour-over will yourself using such software as Nolo.com's Living Trust Maker, included in Quicken Lawyer 2003 Deluxe ($49.95).

If you have a complex estate or you have more than one marriage and children from each, don't do it yourself. But if your situation is straightforward and you draft your trust yourself, it's a good idea to find an estate planning lawyer to review your work.

The cost of a living revocable trust depends on the going rates where you live and the complexity of your estate. Generally, though, a revocable living trust might add $750 to $2,000 to a married couple's plan that also includes a pour-over will and durable powers of attorney for financial matters and health care.

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