I recently met with some representatives from a local bank here in Memphis who want to begin referring all of their clients who need trusts and estate planning to our firm. During this conversation the branch manager asked me this question. “What are the benefits to having a trust”? The following is a synopsis of my answer to his question regarding Memphis trusts and estate planning needs and their benefits.

There are quite a few benefits to having a living trust over just a simple will. These benefits include saving time, money and having the ability for your wishes to continued long after your death.

The first big benefit is time. Estates in Memphis that are governed by a will must have the will validated through the court system. This means you must submit the will to the Memphis probate court to have it approved before any assets can pass to the beneficiaries. Doing this can take anywhere from six months all the way to two years. And while this time is passing the ownership of the property and assets is in limbo and can’t be sold or transferred.

Because the property can’t be transferred or sold a hardship could occur if the property has a mortgage on it. This means that the beneficiaries could be stuck paying the mortgage for quite some time until the will is fully probated.

The second benefit of a living trust is it can save lots of money in probate fees. Probating an estate is not cheap. Memphis probate fees can run anywhere from 2% to 5% of the total gross value of the estate and are the first fees that are paid by the estate

The third benefit of a Memphis living trust is that you don’t have to worry about it being contested. A simple will can be contested by anyone who thinks her or she should receive something from the estate of the deceased.  All they have to do is go down to Adams Street and petition the Memphis Probate court for the item. Once this occurs the judge decides whether they should have it or not. Almost anything in a will can be contested, even the guardianship of minor children can be contested.

Tags: Memphis Living Trust, Memphis Probate

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 am and is filed under Living Trust, Will Contest, blog, probate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.