Revocable Living Trust
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 9:21PM 
A revocable living trust is a plan you can implement to manage and distribute your property while you are alive and which can continue to operate for awhile after your death. A trust of this type is more complicated than a will and, therefore, is more expensive and time-consuming as an estate planning tool. A large portion of the work in creating a trust is “funding” the trust with the actual property you wish to be administered in the trust. Without actually transferring title to real property or personal property such as investment accounts into the trust’s name, the trust is not worth the paper it is written on.
There are a number of advantages to having a revocable living trust which include: avoidance of guardianship in the event of incapacity; avoidance of probate because you already have the asset transfer vehicle in place; privacy because trusts are typically not filed with the court or recorded; and, ease of flow in the distribution of your property upon death.
There are some disadvantages to having a revocable living trust as well which include: expense of drafting and funding the trust, plus the ongoing expense of managing the trust particularly if a bank or trust company is appointed as trustee; hassle of constantly monitoring the trust to make sure assets are property titled and the books are maintained; and, less protection of assets against creditors by a trustee rather than by a personal representative in probate or a court-appointed guardian in a guardianship setting.
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