Wills & Trusts Packages Attorney in Rocklin, California

Trust Package

A trust is a tool used to dispose of your assets as you choose, identify the beneficiaries of those assets, and nominate guardians for any minor children. Legally, a trust is a contractual agreement where the Settlor (the person creating the trust) creates a new legal entity to hold assets, which is then managed by a trustee. As the creator of a revocable living trust, you can be both the settlor and the trustee. From a practical standpoint, you can maintain control over your assets as if there were no trust.

What makes a trust such a widely used and powerful tool is the fact that any assets held in trust are considered to be outside of the estate in relation to probate proceedings. When someone passes away without a trust, the probate process can be a long, tiring process, with legal fees that are often much higher than the cost of a properly constructed trust.

Our Trust package is designed to accomplish the estate planning goals of most people at an affordable flat rate. From an estate planning point of view, very few Californians will require anything more than our Trust package. The Trust package will allow you to dispose of your assets how you wish, appoint agents and choose guardians for your children, all while maintaining full control over your assets during your life and minimizing the impact the probate process will have on your loved ones

Will Package

A will, if properly executed, is very similar to a trust. Like a trust, a will allows you to dispose of your assets as you choose, identify beneficiaries, as well as, nominate guardians for your minor children.

A will, however, does not protect any assets from the probate process. Not only is probate very time consuming, most people are also rightly concerned with the cost of probate. The reason probate can be so expensive is that the fees are based on the full value of your estate and does not take into account any debts you may have. For example, imagine that your estate consisted only of a home worth $100,000 and you had put $20,000 down (owing $80,000 to the bank). By law, the probate attorney and the executor may charge up to 4% of the full $100,000 rather than the $20,000 that you paid. This means, when you pass, your child's probate attorney will charge her $4,000 and the executor will charge her another $4,000 for a total of $8,000.

For some, a will makes more sense than a trust. For those that require a will instead of a trust, our Will package offers all the features stated above at minimal cost to you. Feel free to contact us to learn more about which estate planning tools will work best for you.

Trust vs. Will Packages