BETA - What is the difference between a will and a trust?

What is the difference between a will and a trust? Wills and trusts are different, but the purpose of both of those are the same. The will distributes your assets and trust distributes your assets. But with the trust, it does not go through probate court and it distributes your assets according to the provisions of the trust. The trust that I do most, and I am not an expert in trust because trust can be extremely complex and complicated. And I will advise clients if they ask me about trust, I am very honest. I can do a simple living, a revocable living trust. Revocable meaning they can change it and it is a living trust. While you are living, you still have control over all of your assets. You are the trustee, but then you name a successor trustee for when you die. But there are some trusts that I don't touch because it is complicated. But again, the will says who gets what, the trust says who gets what. When you look down in the provisions of the trust, it will say, well, I want my home to go to my husband and then my son. And that's how things are distributed. So they don't come through probate court. But I will as a caveat, and I won't go into a lot of detail, for my trust clients, I still do a will for them. And it's called a pour over will. And it simply says, I leave everything that I have to go into my trust when I die. So even if they have missed something, they try, and I try to get people to make sure you have titled everything so it's already property and in the trust because you have to fund the trust. But say they've bought a new car and they didn't do that. So that will then says everything comes into the trust, then it's distributed according to the trust provisions. And then one last thing about trust. There is a trust that can go in a will, and that is typically for minor children. It's called a testamentary trust. So my clients that come to me with kids, with minor kids, they might want to name a guardian and a trustee for their children. You can do it in your will and just say, you know, when I die, so I'll use myself for instance, when we had three small children, our will said to each other, and then if both of us are gone, I leave my mom as guardian and trustee of the kids, which meant I wanted her to be guardian of the person, like them physically, she would have to take them, and then guardian of the estate, meaning any what money we left for them to be used for their health, maintenance, and education and support. So that's the will inside of the trust for minor children. You need a will. You need a will. It doesn't matter. You need a will because you need to have a voice in who gets your property and how things are to be distributed. You might not need a trust though, because if you make sure things are titled correctly, see the trust keeps you out of probate. So let's say for instance, you have a house and it is in joint and survivorship with your spouse and the language has to say it. For their joint lives, the remainder to the survivor. That would mean me and my husband live in this house together, we're both alive, it's our house, one dies, it goes, the whole house then goes to the survivor. And you can very easily and quickly have that deed changed. So if you do that, it doesn't go through probate, that house. Your bank accounts, I ask people, are they POD or TOD, payable on death or transfer on death? So you can set, and this is bank specific, you can set up your bank account where the money we have, okay, $1,000 in the account, me and my husband can both spend that, we can deposit money. When one dies though, the whole comes to the other one automatically. That is called payable on death or transfer on death, that does not go through probate. But I will advise people, they will say to me, but we have a joint account, that does not mean that it's survivorship. That means that both of you have check writing privileges and can deposit, but you are just tenants in common. It's not necessarily meaning that if one dies, that money goes to the other and what will happen is for half of that $1,000, if it's not survivorship, I would have to take that $500 through probate court to get it back to the surviving spouse. So there are things you can do in terms of titles, cars are the same way. You can, there's a transfer on death affidavit that you can sign, so it takes it out of probate court. Who should I go to when it comes to motor vehicles and houses? You don't go to the dealership for cars, you go to the DMV or the BMV or whatever in your county they call it. So yeah, Department of Motor Vehicles is, it's a form, it's an affidavit and a lot of them you can find them online now, the affidavit. And again, you need to have proof that that person died with a certified death certificate and then proof of who you are. So that's what you do. For the house, usually they come to me or come to a lawyer, there is an affidavit, it's probably out there somewhere that can be found, but because I know in Ohio, even from county to county, and I practice in three different counties and all the rules are different. The basic law is the same, but courts can have local rules. So that's why people usually find a lawyer to get that house transferred and anything else. As far as bank accounts, a lot of people can just go to their banks and just show again the death certificate and you can have the money transferred. Can wills and trusts be challenged? Absolutely. Will contests happen all the time. In the wills I do, I put a provision in that says if you're a beneficiary and you are going to contest this will, then your share is no longer automatic for you. And that kind of keeps the beneficiaries like, okay, I'm not going to challenge this. Yeah, but they're difficult and that's litigation. And in my 35 years, I've not had a will contest. I had a call once and I referred it out because that's a process.