Creating a trust could be a key part of your estate planning process. Trusts are powerful tools that accomplish many different estate planning goals. Trusts can help to keep your wealth safe and can help you to provide for family members in the best and most appropriate way. However, trusts can also be confusing and you need to make certain that you make the right choices when it comes to trust creation. 
Unsworth LaPlante, PLLC can advise you on how Vermont trust law works to protect you and to protect your heirs or beneficiaries. We can also help you to avoid mistakes that could affect your ability to successfully create a trust that accomplishes your goals. Give us a call to find out more about the ways in which a Vermont estate planning lawyer can help with the process of creating a trust that provides desired protections for you and your loved ones.
5 Common Mistakes When Creating a Trust
Trusts are, unfortunately, not a very well-understood estate planning tool, although trusts are an important estate planning tool. Many people who decide to try to create a trust make errors that undermine their efforts to uses a trust to protect themselves and the people they love.
Working with an experienced attorney when creating a trust is the best way to avoid mistakes. You can also become familiar with the most common errors, including these five mistakes many people make during the trust creation process:
- Not following formal requirements for creating a trust: If you actually want your trust to be legally valid and to provide expected protection to you and your heirs or beneficiaries, you must know what is required for the creation of a trust document. A Vermont trust creation lawyer can assist you in following the right protocols to make a trust document that is going to be legally enforceable.
- Not selecting the right kind of trust: There are a huge number of different trust types, including both trusts that are revocable and trusts not designed to be modified or revoked. Depending upon your goals in trust creation, you could end up making a domestic asset protection trust; a spendthrift trust; a special needs trust or one of many other trust types. You need to know what purposes different kinds of trusts serve so you select the right kind of trust to meet your needs.
- Not choosing the right trustee: Your trustee has a fiduciary duty and will be obliged to act in the best interest of heirs or beneficiaries. Unfortunately, if you don’t select the right person, the trustee might not know how to be successful in managing trust assets and the trustee could make mistakes that cost heirs. A trustee who turns out to be untrustworthy could also cause problems for heirs or beneficiaries who end up having to go to court and take legal action against that trustee.
- Not properly transferring assets into the trust: Creating a trust is just the first step. You also must understand what specific steps are formally required to move assets into the trust so the trust owns the assets and so the assets end up being protected.
- Not understanding the implications of transferring assets into a trust: Moving assets into a trust could affect outstanding mortgages or other loans on those assets, and could affect taxes. There could also be other impacts of moving assets into a trust that you should talk with your attorney about.
There could also be other mistakes made as well as you work on creating a trust. You should talk with an experienced attorney as early as you can in the process of making your trust in order to reduce the possibility of errors that render your trust invalid or that result in your trust not actually providing expected protections.
Getting Help from A Vermont Trust Creation Lawyer
Unsworth LaPlante, PLLC can assist you in avoiding trust creation mistakes and in ensuring that you have made a legally valid trust that gives you the control and protection you desire. We also help to make certain that the trust you create provides expected benefits for your heirs or beneficiaries who you have created the trust to help.
To find out more about trust creation and about how a Vermont estate planning lawyer can help with creating a trust, download our free estate planning worksheet. You can also give us a call at (802) 879-7133 or contact us online to get personalized advice and assistance with the creation of your trust. Call now so we can get started working on your trust creation process.
Stephen Unsworth
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