Living Trust – 2012 New Year Resolution

Hi my name is Bridget Mackay. I’m an attorney and I have practiced exclusively in the area of wills, trusts and estate planning. And this is my video blog this month and in the month of January 2012, we are addressing your New Year’s resolutions to get a will or a trust done. I spoke about wills in the last blog, and this one, I want to address to living trusts. People often call wondering what a living trust is and whether they need one. So, hopefully, we’ll have some basic information here to make that decision.

What is a living trust, what does it do? It does about the same thing as a will in the sense that it can transfer your assets at death to your heirs but, it is different than a will. It has an extra feature or component to it and that you avoid probate or you avoid having to go to court in order to transfer your assets or your stuff to your heirs. And, as such, it often is less costly of an instrument to use to plan for your eventual death. Because you avoid that whole probate court situation, which as everyone knows, anytime you have to go to court it cost money. So the other piece of a trust that is different than a will is that it also kicks in if you’re incapacitated for a long period of time. Let’s say you have a stroke or you develop Parkinson’s disease and you can no longer manage your financial affairs, and a durable power of attorney is not enough; you need someone in place controlling your assets. Then, a trust allows for your successor, trustee, or for someone to help you and step into that role and you get to choose who that person is.

Why should or who should have a trust versus a will? Well, two basic requirements in my opinion is if you have a house or you have assets that value over $100,000, you should opt for a living trust rather than a will. It’s kind of that basic.

How does a trust work? When we create a trust for you instead of a will where we create the document and say, “I want my house to go to Suzie, my child.” With a trust, we say all of those things but there’s a second step in which we take all of those assets and we transfer them into the trust by a title. So for example, Jim and Judy Smith owned a house and they did a trust. We take the deed of that house which was once owned by Jim and Judy as joint tenants, and we change the name of ownership to that house as Jim and Judy Smith, Trustees of the Smith Family Trust. Then, at their death, it saves that house from going through probate or the court process to transfer. And also, it allows if Jim and Judy get Alzheimer’s or lose their capacity then their daughter, Suzie, can jump into the role as trustee and take care of them.

There are some sub-topics here but that’s the basic design of a living trust and how they’re different from wills. So if you have more questions, contact our office and we’d be happy to help.

Wills – 2012 New Years Resolutions

Hi, I’m Bridget Mackay, an attorney and I practice in the area of wills, trusts, and estate planning. If you’re following my January blogs, I’m dedicating the whole month to going over some of the basic things that you want to put into your estate plan. Today I’m going to talk a little about wills.

It is the traditional form of an estate plan. They’ve been around for ever and they are the traditional way to pass wealth from one generation to the other. They function in the sense that you can say, as the person who is making the will, where you want your things to go when you die, all your possessions. We often think of Leona Helmsley… I mean, even if it’s a crazy request like Leona Helmsley leaving everything to her dog. You can do this in a will and it is sort of the main piece of an estate plan.

If you have small children; the other function it does is transfer guardianship for those small children. That’s the only document it can be done in. If you have children under the age of 18 and you want to designate a guardian for them, if you’re… You pass away while they’re still minors, the document in which you do it is a will. So you may ask who does need a will? Well, if you have assets that are under $100,000, then you can use a will. Anything over $100,000, we might want to talk about a living trust, which is going to be in a subsequent blog. And if you have minor children you definitely want a will.

What happens when you die if you have a will? This is a question that often comes up for me. Let’s say we put a will together and you pass away. If you have a will, in order for your beneficiaries in your will, or your heirs, or your children to get your assets, it will have to go through a court process called Probate; which is another subject I’m going to talk a little more about. But the only thing you need to remember is that if you have a will you’re going to go through Probate, which is a whole different process of transferring assets, which is different then a living trust. And rest assured I will describe all of those processes in my future blogs. But for now, that’s the basic information on a will, about what it does and who might need one

Estate Planning – 2012 New Year Resolution

Hi, my name is Bridget Mackay. I am an attorney and I practice in the area of living wills, trusts and probates. In this next series of blogs for the month of January, I am addressing all your New Year’s resolutions for 2012 which often is to get a living trust or to start planning your estate.

I want to kick it off with a little discussion about estate planning. What does that mean? I think when you often hear that term or someone says I am an estate planning attorney, people often think that you only work with folks who have a mansion and Bentley cars and lots of money. And the truth is that that’s not true. An estate plan includes several documents that basically put your affairs in order. So if you have any possessions or you have children or you have a house or you care about where your possessions go and who makes your healthcare decisions, then you need an estate planner and you should do it, for your New Year’s resolution.

Why should you do it? I believe that it’s the most loving thing you can do for your family. It gives them direction at a time that they need it most. Whether that’d be you’re injured or you’ve passed away and it’s not only for distributing your possessions. Part of your estate planning includes a healthcare directive which deals with your medical issues. If you can’t make your medical decisions, you choose who makes those decisions and you tell them what your philosophies are about end-of-life decisions.

How would you create your estate plan, now that you have this as your New Year’s resolution? The best thing to do is go to an attorney you trust that works in this area of law and they will prepare for you several documents which I will discuss over the next series of blogs. They include a living trust or will to deal with death or incapacity, they include healthcare directives to deal with catastrophic health events or when you start losing your ability to make your medical decisions. And it also includes a power of attorney for your financial decisions, in case, there is a time where you temporarily cannot pay your mortgage or your bills, your choosing someone to do that for you. But I will go into more detail in future blogs. Stay tuned for the month of New Year’s resolutions and New Beginnings. And again I’m Bridget Mackay, Law Offices of Bridget Mackay, give us a call.

Estate Planning, A Cautionary Tale: Same Sex Couple

Hi. I’m Bridget Mackay and here’s another installment in my “Cautionary Tales” series of my video blogs. And this story is about a same-sex couple who were sort of old school. One was 78 and one was 82, and they never registered — that sort of was an evolution that came later in same-sex relationships — or married. Another fact that’s good to know in this story is neither of them had Wills, Healthcare Directives or Powers of Attorney, so they have no Estate planning documents. They were sort of living happily together and aging.

Well, it came to be that the younger of the couple, the 78-year old, started to show signs of dementia, and early onset Alzheimer’s. And I think what I see in my practice, at least, in long-term relationship couples, the early signs of this disease often are explained away by the other partner. And part of it is probably denial and not wanting to have to deal with it. And I think we often confuse some dementia symptoms with maybe senility or just getting old. Unfortunately in this case, he progressed fairly quickly. And in some Alzheimer’s cases, they get violent on occasion and do some crazy things. And in this case, the partner was trying to put out the fire in the fireplace with the garden hose, you know, some dangerous things around the house. So it was clear that he needed to get out of the house and his 82-year old partner could not care for him. He was placed in a skilled nursing facility but the skilled nursing facility wanted someone to sign a contract that would be financially responsible. And by this point, the partner was not, who was ill, being placed in the facility, didn’t have the confidence to sign any contracts. And there were no documents in place to identify the person to do that for him.

What happened to this couple was, they came to see me, and we had to start a conservatorship on the partner that was in the nursing home. And the conservator who filed for it was not his 82-year old partner because by this time he felt too old, and just didn’t want the responsibilities that would go with making healthcare decisions and financial decisions. So, it was a family friend who stepped up to be a conservator. And what we petitioned the court for was to give her the power to make all his medical decisions and all his financial decisions. That may seem simple as I’m laying it out, but the truth is when you ever engage in a conservatorship, and that occurs when someone is incapacitated or does not have the ability to pay their bills, to feed themselves, to make medical decisions, and they don’t have any Estate planning documents in place, they have to go to the court in order to appoint… So the court can appoint someone to do all those things for them. And that’s basically the gist of a conservatorship.

At the end of the day for this couple, and for this individual, it took 3 months of being in court and requiring… Getting all the required documents filed and $10,000 in attorney’s fees to finally establish a conservatorship for him. And in that time, from the time he was placed into facility to the time we finally got letters of conservatorship, it was more like four or five months because we had to identify people and they came to the attorney, and me, and try to figure this whole thing out. So it was about five months, and in that whole time, no one was making his healthcare decisions. He had to rely on the best judgment of the doctors in his facility and the nurses because nobody else had authority over his medical care to tell them what to do, which was really the sad thing. And above all else, it was a very expensive process when he, early on, could’ve done a Power of Attorney, Healthcare Directive, Will, or Trust for far, far less.

So the moral of this story again is, as they will be with all of these, in this case no documents failed them and they had to rely on the court. There is always a safety net of the court, either through conservatorship or probate, when it comes to your affairs. But better to have them in place, in the way that you want them, before you have to use that safety net. Thanks.

Estate Planning, A Cautionary Tale: The Cougar!

Hi, I am Bridget Mackay and you are watching my video blog series on cautionary tales. This actually has a happy ending so I can warn you about that now. This story involves an older woman who was widowed and had children who took up with a younger man who was 20 plus years her junior. She had dated this person, without all the other issues that might have gone on with her children, but she had dated this person for about four years and she being kind of the financial… She had… She was at a better financial position than her boyfriend and so often paid for many things that they did. On one occasion they decided to go to Costa Rica for a couple of weeks and while they were there she died, which was very sad for her family and very difficult in the sense of dying in a foreign country and having to deal with foreign authorities in order to get a body back and things like that.

The good part of this story was prior to doing this, she had set up an Estate plan. She had a Trust, Healthcare Directive, Power of Attorney. So, when this tragedy befell her and her family in a foreign country, all those documents were in place to identify who her agent and who the responsible party was for her and her affairs. What’s even better is the boyfriend came after the family later and wanted to get some of the assets, had claimed that she had promised them to him and that she had put him in the Trust and put his name on things. And the truth of it is she hadn’t. She had already done her Trust. In the Trust, he was not provided for. She had a daughter that she was helping through graduate school who could continue through graduate school and that was provided for in the Trust as well. But he was unable to get at any of these assets because of this Trust and how well outlined it was about where her assets were going. He did get a small cash gift so she did provide for him for something in the Trust and that was helpful later on when he challenged the Trust because courts tend to look at the fact that someone actually gets a gift that the testator was really thinking about that person and provided for them however small or large that gift was.

So, at the end of the day, her having her affairs in order made her family and children very grateful for what she had done and that she had taken the time and she was a client of mine and that time, I can tell you, it did not take very long or was very expensive and it really was needed when it was needed. So, that is my happy cautionary tale and, again, the same moral is true: Better plan ahead than wait and suffer the consequences.

Estate Planning, A Cautionary Tale: Brain Tumor

Hi, I’m Bridget Mackay and I’m an attorney working in the area of wills, trusts, and estate planning and if you are watching this, hopefully you’ve seen some of my other video blogs. This is another little series I’m doing called “Cautionary Tales” since we’re coming into Halloween. It’s now October, hopefully, while you’re seeing this. I thought it would be a good idea to put some cautionary tales out there to illustrate how important it is to do some planning around life’s events.

The first story I want to tell is about a couple who is married. They were both in their mid to late forties. He discovered he had a brain tumor. It was not a cancerous brain tumor but it was one that was growing at a very quick rate and so, his doctors recommended that he get an operation within a week to ten days after his first discovery of the brain tumor. They were told that he would be… It was most likely a successful surgery that they hope to get everything and that his functioning would be the same or similar as before the surgery. The couple was warned of, also, many risks that are possible, as you know, with any time you go under the knife.

So they really… Everything went so quickly they really didn’t get a chance to do any Estate planning, so there was no Healthcare Directive. They did see an attorney who prepared some Durable Power Of Attorney, which if you have seen my earlier videos, relate to mostly financial matters but, they never got them signed and notarized. So they had them but they weren’t signed or notarized. He went under the knife and went into surgery. They removed the tumor, but unfortunately a lot of the risks that they were told about came true and he ended up relearning, and is still continuing to re-learn how to talk, how to walk, how to communicate, how to… Everything.

In the meantime his wife has been his main caregiver. He had assets in his own name, some things like 401k’s but also some bank accounts and CDs that were in just his name, and she can’t get to them unless she were to do a conservatorship on him, which will be in future videos. The cautionary tale there now is even though you are in your mid-forties, you really do need some basic Estate planning documents that would have prevented this type of outcome, and those are your Durable Power Of Attorney and your Healthcare Directive. With just those two documents, my client could have had some access to some badly needed money, now that he was not earning a living and needed care, that were contained in those separate property assets of his. The moral of this cautionary tale is even though you may think you don’t have a lot of money or you don’t need estate planning because you think it may be too expensive and it won’t be something you’ll need in the future, you can never predict what’s going to happen in your life or at what age it’s going to happen. And those two basic documents, which aren’t expensive to get at all, would have saved a ton of heartache and other legal fees that come without having those.

So I hope this has been motivational. If you have any other questions about healthcare directives or powers of attorney, there are other blogs in which I talk more specifically about those, please give them a view.

Durable Power of Attorney For Financial Affairs

Hi. Bridget Mackay here on my next installment of my video blogs relating to planning your estate. Today I want to talk about durable powers of attorney for financial affairs. You may ask why would I need this document, what’s its purpose. Well, this is a document you get when you go to have your living trust prepared and it’s a document that handles all of those things that may happen in your life that render you temporarily incapacitated, which is a nice way of saying you’ve been in a car accident and you’re in a hospital, or you’ve had a stroke or heart attack, something that has rendered you unable to pay your bills and conduct your normal financial affairs. Although, it can also go to the extent where your agent does, pretty much stands in your shoes and can sell your home, can sign escrow documents for you and in some cases change your trust. So, it’s a very important document and its function exists only while you’re alive. We’ve already planned your trust or your will but this document steps in while you’re alive for a temporarily period of time, or at least that’s what’s intended, what it is intended for.

So, that’s a little reason why you need it and what it does. There are two different types of this documents. In other words, I can write it two different ways. I can write it where it’s an immediate your agent, the person you choose to do all these things for you and stand in your shoes can, the moment you sign it, be your agent and can even act for you if you’re not incapacitated. I’ve done powers of attorney for folks who have gone on vacation and the timing was such that they were in the midst of refinancing a home and they needed their daughter to sign all their papers, the escrow for this refinancing. So, in that case they use their Durable Power Of Attorney. She signed their signature on their behalf and that was completed and nobody was incapacitated or nothing catastrophic had happened.

The second type of Power Of Attorney can be a springing Power Of Attorney and that is when it only comes into play when you’re incapacitated. And typically in these documents there wiill be a paragraph saying one or two doctors need to… The agent needs to provide one or two doctors notes that say you’re not, you don’t have capacity and cannot conduct your financial affairs. So, those are the two types.

Durable powers of attorney can also be used in more advanced types of planning. They’re often seen in a Medi-Cal benefits planning scenario. They are often essential in that realm. It allows your agents when you’re presumably in a Medi-Cal benefits planning scenario, you are in a skilled nursing facility for an unknown length of time, and so it allows your agent to gift your assets in order to qualify for Medi-Cal benefits. They can change your trust and they can do any number of things that would put your financial affairs in a place that you could apply for Medi-Cal benefits. So, it does kind of handy in that scenario. I will be talking about Medi-Cal benefits planning later in the series, but for now just know that it helps.

Another area that an advanced sort of use for Durable Power Of Attorney is if you have dementia or a loved one has dementia and need to be placed in a locked memory care facility, they won’t take you unless you have a Durable Power Of Attorney for that loved one. And if you don’t have a Durable Power Of Attorney for that loved one, then they’re going to require you and your family to apply through the courts for a conservatorship, another sort of teaser for another video blog only doing on conservatorships. And you’ll see when you see that video blog, that it’s a very long costly process that if you can produce this Durable Power Of Attorney to avoid it, it’s worth it. Much like a living trust is worth it to avoid probate.

So to recap, a Durable Power Of Attorney is in place while you could create it alive as soon as you’re deceased, your agents can no longer act on your behalf. It helps in temporary incapacity type situations and can even help in long term incapacity situations. And it’s main goal is for you to designate someone to handle your financial affairs. They come in two forms. They are… You can either have an immediate form by the moment you sign it, your agent is your agent. They don’t have to show any financial institution a letter from a doctor, or you can have a springing where it only comes into play when you are designated incapacitated by two physicians or one physician’s letter.

I hope that’s been helpful. Please look out for our future blogs on health care directives, choosing agents, choosing trustees and the other blogs I have alluded to during this one. Thank you.

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Understanding Health Care Directives

Hello. My name is Bridget Mackay. I’m an attorney and I practice in the area of estate planning, doing wills and trusts and probate and trust administration. This is the next video blog in my series on planning your estate. And this blog is going to be dedicated to talking about health care directives.

When you make a revocable living trust plan, you not only have the trust created for you by the attorney but also there are what I call support documents in addition to that. And this document is one of those. Its purpose is to plan for your health incapacity. So, in this document, you are going to choose a person to act on your behalf and make decisions for you regarding all of your health needs when you are unable to do so. This is a document I would actually recommend as well as the power of attorney for financial affairs, for even people who don’t have a will or a trust yet. I consider these two documents to be a basic estate plan; things that every person should have.

So, without further ado, I want to explain a little bit about what a Health Care Directive is. It’s also sometimes called the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care as well. These two terms are used interchangeably. For this video, I’m going to call it a Health Care Directive. It is not a DNR or a Do Not Resuscitate order and it is not a POLST which is a Physician Orders for Life Saving Treatment document. However, those two issues are incorporated in a Health Care Directive; we address resuscitation, we address orders regarding life saving treatment. But often people will have Health Care Directive and if they’re going into the hospital, a DNR as well.

However, you’re… Today, we’re just going to talk about the health care directives. So, you’re in a situation where you can’t make your own health decisions, something has happened and either you’re not mentally capable or you’re physically not capable — you’re in a coma, you’re in surgery, or something — the physician is going to and your care providers are going to want to turn to someone to make decisions about what’s going on with your life. And so, in this document, you can really be creative and draft it broadly or as specifically as you want. Typically it provides for things like how long to keep you on life support, whether or not you want treatment when the treatment burdens outweigh the benefits that you may receive. In my documents in particular, there is a whole section on a philosophy about life. My documents and 99% of my clients typically want a, “Keep me comfortable” and “Don’t do anything that’s not going to be beneficial to me.” If it looks like I’m not going to survive, whatever state that I’m in, then let me go gently and pain free.

Other people do want life at all costs, and those health care directives are certainly possible for that client. You can also talk about if you develop dementia or Alzheimer’s, a form of dementia where you can dictate to what extent and basic treatment is used and balance that with how much you can meaningfully interact with your family. You can make anatomical gifts in these health care directives and for some also identify who you want your body to be given to at your death and who’s responsible for planning for your funeral arrangements. So, it’s a very broad document. And unlike the Power of Attorney for Financial Affairs, it does have some influence after death like I just mentioned.

So, who should have this document? Like I said at the beginning, I think everyone needs a Health Care Directive. I think, though, it is critical for some groups of people to have. If you know them, have them get out and make one of these as soon as possible, because it is invaluable. One of those folks are people with chronic health issues. And typically people with chronic health issues are going to be given this information as well but they should always make sure they have an up to date Health Care Directive naming an agent that they want and trust. A second group of folks are registered domestic partners, same sex couples, or even opposite sex couples that aren’t married; sort of the domestic partners situation. Because physicians will turn to blood family over a partner, a girlfriend, or long term relationship. And so if you want to make sure that your long term relationship is the person you want to make these very critical and intimate decisions for you, then you need a Health Care Directive.

And finally, the elderly. Often elderly folks may not have this document on file or have gotten it. Or they have it and it’s old and it may have a deceased spouse on it and not provide for an alternate. So, it’s very important for your… Anyone over 65, which I don’t consider 65 elderly, but to really pull that out either make sure you have one, if you don’t have one or had one done a long time ago, get it up to date.

So, that is advanced Health Care Directives. You can always find out more information by calling my office or going to my website. Our number is 707-769-9975. You can even email me and I’ll be happy to answer any other questions. Thank you.

Choosing a Health Care Agent

Hello. I’m Bridget Mackay. I’m an attorney and practice in the area of estate planning and this is my next installment on my video blog around the topic of planning your estate. Today, I want to talk about choosing a health care agent or Durable Power Of Attorney agent. As I’ve explained before when you get a living trust by an attorney or having one drawn up, there’s several support documents that also are created at the same time. One is the Durable Power of Attorney which there’s another video blog on and Health Care Directive again, another video blog on.

Just in short, the Durable Power of Attorney, you’re choosing someone who’s going to stand in your shoes and do all of your financial affairs; pay your bills, sell your… I mean, the ranges from pay your bills, to selling your house, to mortgaging your house, to whatever is necessary for your benefit and that you would do in that situations but can’t.

Health Care Directive is when you’re in a position where you can’t make your own health care decisions and this person does that for you. And again, there’s a whole range of decisions that are made under that, anywhere from what medications to take, to whether to pull the plug, so to speak.

So, how do I choose someone for such very important roles. First, which I say about every choice you make in a people, in an estate plan is choose someone that you trust. In the case of a Durable Power of Attorney for financial affairs, you do want someone who has some financial responsibility. Typically, the person that people choose to be their successor trustees, they also choose to be their durable power of attorney. However, if your trustee lives in another state, your Durable Power of Attorney might want to have more, to be more local to where you live. Remember the rule is somewhat temporary, it only lasts during your lifetime. As soon as you die, the power of attorney is moot. Your agent can no longer act under it. So, there is some benefit to having someone that lives close by. On the other hand there are people for example, if it’s a child of yours, who would be willing, children are often willing to fly from wherever they are if a parent is in need and needs help. So, but the base level, make sure someone is financially savvy when you choose your Durable Power of Attorney and it’s someone you trust; those are the two most important things.

As far as a health care directive, you want someone who doesn’t necessarily have to have financial savvy. This is someone that maybe shares your same philosophy about death and dying or long term illness or treatment. Certainly someone who, if not holds your same values, definitely knows what your values are. And when you create that document you need to make sure that that person you choose is on board with what you want because they will have to take into consideration your religious beliefs, your spiritual beliefs and anything that you’ve communicated to them about your philosophies, about being treated medically. So, that person doesn’t necessarily have to have any financial savvy at all. You may want someone who has a lot of compassion and is really in line with your thinking in terms of treatment and life quality versus quantity of life, all of those pretty heavy issues that come up for them.

One note on choosing agents. If you have spouses in an estate planning world, I do it for family and spouses, obviously, the other spouse is named as the first agent. But you can choose alternate agents. In that situation we assume that the spouse is unable to act on behalf of the other spouse. And so, unlike a trust or a will where the spouses have to agree about the alternate successors and who they are, in these two documents you can choose who you want. So for example, if the spouse isn’t available for one spouse then that spouse can choose their sister, their brother-in-law, their best friend and the other spouse can choose an alternate that’s their brother or sister or best friend. So, it doesn’t have to match up like it does in the other documents.

So, that’s a little bit about choosing your agents for Health Care Directives and Durable Powers of Attorney. If you have any questions, you can call the number at the bottom of this video or go to my website and email me. Thank you for listening.

Choosing A Trustee For A Trust

Hello. I’m Bridget Mackay and this is the next installment in my video blogs relating to planning your estate. We have talked about what a will is, what a living trust is, the differences between the two in which you might choose. The next video blog sort of relates to that. And I’m going to address the issue of choosing a trustee or an executor for your will or a trust. You may remember from the other two video blogs that the next person to take over after you is called the trust. Well, you are a trustee in a trust. And when you die, you have successor trustee that you need to choose. And in a will, that same person has a different name. And they are called the executor. Both do essentially the same work.

So when you’re considering who that person is going to be, I have 10 main things you need to consider in choosing that person. I have to say in planning and drafting estates for people or trusts for people, this issue and the issue of who is going to be the physical guardian for their children paper-lock most people. So here are some points to hopefully loosen up that hesitancy or decision making process. And when I list these ten points, I’m really speaking about individuals you may be considering. Clearly if you have an institutional trustee you want like Ever Jones or Wells Fargo or Exchange Bank, then those are decisions you make in terms of how much you trust the institution and what their cost is of being a trustee in your trust.

So let’s start. The first most important point, number one, is you need to choose someone you trust. And that has a whole set of thoughts I’m sure in and out of itself, that it’s someone you trust. And number two, right behind that, you may trust a person but this person needs to be someone who is trustworthy. Someone who hasn’t had a lot of financial difficulty in their life, who, for a lack of better words, sort of an upstanding citizen type of person. I mean you want someone who, if it’s a will, and there requires a bond who can pass through a bonding agency and acquire a bond. Just someone who’s trustworthy, has integrity.

Third on the list — and these really are in my mind somewhat an order of importance — but third is you need someone who can make decisions. Have you noticed in this person’s personal or work life that they need to consider choices and make decisions, sometimes unpopular decisions that make decisions nonetheless because there’s nothing worse than going through a trust administration or probate where you have an indecisive trustee who gets influenced if there’s conflict and can’t reach a resolution.

Finally, our number four, you need someone who follows rules. Probating on estates, doing a trust administration is all about rules. You’ve got to follow a process and stick to it. And there is laws that govern these documents. So you want a rule follower not a… He can think out of a box. But you don’t want them to be a rule breaker or someone who makes their own way. Those often turn out to be bad choices for this role.

Fifth, you need someone who’s willing to seek help. There are things that a trustee is not going to be able to do, like tax returns, like the legal portion of it, financial planners. Someone who either has relationships with these people or is willing to seek out help when they know they’re over their head.

Sixth, you need someone who knows your beneficiaries. Often your trusts are going to have sub-trusts that deal with your, not just minor children, but maybe children under a certain age that are still going to be under the trust at your death. So you want your trustees to know your beneficiaries. They don’t necessarily have to like and all of that’s a benefit. But hopefully, someone they know and best case scenario is someone they respect.

Number seven, you want to pick someone your age or younger. If you are younger with a young family and you choose your parents, that’s okay. But realize that at some point, you’re going to need to change that. And that’s mostly because you’re going to have trust for the kids within a living trust or within the will that this person is going to have to, you make the trust when your child is two. And you choose this person, and that child doesn’t get paid out at your death until they’re thirty or forty, you want someone who’s going to survive that lifespan or have a good chance of surviving that lifespan.

Eighth, you want someone familiar, if possible, with the subject of trust administrations or probates. Maybe someone who’s done that before and done it successfully. Ninth, avoid co-trustees. Often I see this most typically with parents who have two or more children, and they want all the kids to be the trustees on the trust. My advice, simply is, pick one. Pick one that you think will handle the job better. Because just for practicality purposes with the amount of paperwork that needs to go around and get signed and decisions that need to be made, it is smoother and you go back to having a decision maker easier when you’re dealing with one trustee.

Finally, ten. Don’t be afraid to change it. These documents are living documents. You can go in and amend, revoke, change them at anytime. If there comes a point in time where the trustee you originally chose you no longer trust or have gotten too old or you don’t want, change it. And on that note be aware of who is your trustee and keep track of that.

So, those are my ten points on choosing a trustee or an executor. If you have any other questions, call the number that’s located on the end of this video and thank you for watching.