10 Reasons to Set Up A Trust

Many wonder why they should bother having a trust. The truth is there are many reasons why you should set up a trust, but we have outlined the top ten for you:

1. Avoid Probates. Avoiding probates can save you a lot of time, effort, money, and paperwork. Probates are when the judge has to determine the validity of the will and how everything was to be distributed. Setting up a trust would bypass this process and allow your family to access the assets quicker.
2. Better Protection Against Contesting. A trust would make it harder for someone to contest an inheritance that they were not happy with.
3. Distribution is Flexible. While the person creating the trust would generally outline how the funds would be distributed, there are some exceptions. If the grantor of the trust has the option to disburse in smaller amounts, if the beneficiary does not do well with larger sums.
4. Paying for Higher Education. One of the many reasons that parents set up trusts is to help pay for their children’s education. It can be specified that the funds are to go toward education and once that is paid for, the extra money can be split up evenly.
5. Charitable Trust. This is a popular way for people to donate to charity in a way that it can be done on a regular basis. Or they can use these to offer their land or other assets to a charity once they pass away or are no longer using it.
6. Reducing Estate Taxes. Trusts can help you to reduce the taxes on your estate, which typically happens once a person has passed away and the property is being transferred.
7. Dividing Assets and Property. Living trusts can help you to decide how you are going to split up property and other tricky assets. Living trusts can help to spell out who inherits property.
8. Eliminate (or reduce) Family Feuds. Trusts are customizable, allowing the grantors to tailor the trust to their needs, or anyone else’s.
9. Helping to Manage Affairs. Some people set up trusts so that affairs can still run smoothly even if they become disabled or have other complications due to old age.
10. Privacy. There aren’t public record of trusts and do not have to go through probate, so they offer a lot more privacy than wills do.