Do You Need A Lawyer To Make A Living Trust

Do you need a lawyer to make a living trust? So that answer is going to come at the end, and in between I'm going to describe the components. Number one, what's the difference between a will and a living trust? Number two, the benefits of having both. And I think it's not only just having both, it's required. A will by itself is useless. I'm just going to tell you that. Lawyers are going to tell you otherwise, they're wrong and we're right. And I say we, because we're a whole team. Last thing I want to share with you is how to work side by side, with the team to make sure you're not making any mistakes, because we see so many documented mistakes because you're trying to do it by yourself. So what's the difference between a will and a trust? Well, let's just get to it. A trust is going to keep you out of probate. So I don't care what state or country in the world you are in, they have probate. So when someone dies, you end up in this place called probate. It's a position in the court and they're going to validate. If you have a trust, you're going to go away. If you have a will, anyone can test it. Like I could come and contest your will. I could say, you know, you Susie from Seattle or Kevin from Kansas, you owe me money and I want it out of the will and I could sue for it. And you say, well, you came out of nowhere. I know that's the point. A will is contestable. Anyone in the world can contest it. They can make claims on it. They can throw you in the litigation. I've had families that have literally didn't have trust, only had a will and are still in probate court. They're fighting. And then you're assigned a court case manager and they're going to take a percent, usually anywhere between 10 to 40% of all your assets. So I don't care if you're worth a hundred thousand, you need a trust. I actually believe that in your young twenties, you need to get a trust because if God forbid anything happened to you, whatever things you have left, they're going to probate court and then everyone can fight about them. Everything. They can fight about your vehicles. They can say that was supposed to be mine. We had a conversation, that piece of jewelry is supposed to be it gets messy. So a living trust keeps you out of probate because a trust is the umbrella. The will is a piece of the trust. And if you really think of it from a legacy standpoint, the trust is really the documentation of the values, the mission, like how does the family going to operate? What are they going to do going forward? It's the values, it's the roots of the estate that I want a legacy for more than one or two generations. The will is just how the stuff's going to get disseminated. The pour over will is another component, which is, oh, I forgot to put some stuff in the trust. So make sure anything I forgot goes into the trust without a pour over will things that are not labeled, they go to probate. So it gets really messy. So you need every component, which is why you cannot do this alone. You need experts to help you guide through this. In fact, we're about to launch a software that you can actually put all the legal documents into this portal for like less than 50 bucks a month and actually maintain all your documents. So then when you actually update your trust, your will, and all your stuff, you are actually command of it. You've gone, you're passing, they have access to the portal and it's cleanly documented. So can't wait for that software to come out. It'll help organize all of you very well. So I'll let you know when that comes out, but you absolutely need all of that. And then the other two documents that are critical and many times forgotten, it's two powers of attorney, one for your health, who has the command and authority. If something, if you become incapacitated to either say you're done or revive you, and then you need a power of attorney for your finances, which I highly encourage you to get one, if not three, not two, cause they can stalemate. So like in three that are dissimilar, you don't want like a couple and then somebody else because a couple of price sticks together. You still got a 50, 50, you know, stalemate. So make sure you have at least two or three, I'd say one to three people over your finances, because if one person does it, I see them get greedy. I see it all the time. And they'll decide to take more money. They'll decide because they're the executor that they want 10% of the entire state, even though it's not documented legally, they can get it. So there's a whole bunch about this and that's, I could probably go through 10 more tabs of things you have to have. You have to have stock certificates. So the way we set the trust up is we have you own the assets in LLCs cause you can operate in LLCs and bank accounts and there's deductions. A trust doesn't have deductions. It doesn't work like that. So the power of having both is that it's a combined, complete estate. It's a complete legacy estate. It's a trust, it's a will, it's a pour over will, two powers of attorney and everything else. And for those of you who have young kids, you need to establish guardians. And if guardians aren't financially savvy, this is where the finances go to somebody else. So I act as a financial executor to a lot of my clients that I've gotten close to because I'm going to run it the way that I've mentored the family to run it. I'm not going to get greedy. I'm not going to take any extra weird money about it. I'm just going to help the kids be able to not only alive, but thrive and get taken care of financially in the right way. Without that, a lot of families start taking the money, use it for themselves and not the kids that were supposed to go to. I've seen it all. So all that being said, if you have any questions, go to asklaurel.com, A-S-K-L-O-R-E-L. If you want to learn to live corporate life the way I describe it, I'm going to give you two tickets to our Millionaire Intensive. We do it once a month, teaches you how to really set up this corporate life, set up the trust, set it right. And then I have an entire team and I'll get to the answer in just a moment about the lawyers, but I have an entire team will make sure your documents are right. And that is powerful. Before I do all that, I want you to subscribe to the channel. I want you here five days a week, click that notification button. So you're here and we're here to help you. We're here to help you walk through this and get it done right and on time. So the last question of the common mistakes is you try to do this yourself. Right now there's some football players endorsing a $99 will and trust. I would never do that. First of all, it's just a document mill. All you're going to do is check boxes and think you have it. You have to have a lawyer sign off. If you don't have a lawyer sign off, you're crazy because no one's going to defend you in probate court. No one wants to take a case once it's in court. It's a lot of work. They didn't do the documents. They're defending your own crappy work. If you're serious about having a legacy, then you don't get cheap. A legacy is about living financially for generations after you pass. Companies don't get taken down. Real estate doesn't get sold. Good debt doesn't get paid off. You keep the financial structure that made the money and the kids have to keep it going forward. So to that point, if you are here and you're the only one in the family who wants to do it, or you're going to disseminate an inheritance to a bunch of uneducated kids, you better get here. So make sure your kids are reading. I don't care if they're in their forties. If they're uneducated, this is the 87 steps to what they could have, should have, would have done to set your family up in a way that you have a good legacy. So other mistakes are documents not being signed right. Other mistakes are not, again, not using the lawyer and then not doing updates. It's like my daughter just turned 18, so I don't have to worry about guardianship anymore. That's over, right? I have an 18-year-old and a 25-year-old and we're at 2024. So now I'm shifting it to how would those two collaborate. They each have their own trust because they have very different lives. So that's how ours is going to roll. So there's trust on top and then they each have their own trust. So there's a whole way that you want to set very custom to what you want for you, your family, and your kids. If you have special needs anywhere in your family, there are special need trusts that are very specific to protect those kids or parents or family members. So we have a lot to share with you. So we are more of a paralegal document team and then we find the lawyers in your state of which they have to sign the documents and they will be the ones there. The last person on the team that we'll put around you if you're serious and become a client is a tax person because you've got to make sure you manage estate tax and gifting all the way through death to make sure you don't overpay tax upon a death. So any questions go to asklaural.com. I've got a lot to share with you. I know the stuff in and out. I'm not scripted. It's in my DNA. I can't wait to help you and your family create a legacy. Go to asklaural.com, ask a question, make a request. I'll be back tomorrow.