Posts Tagged ‘Revocable Living Trust’

Quicken Will Maker Software

Written by Christopher J. Berry, Esq. on November 4, 2008 – 12:05 pm -

David Goldman, a Jacksonville estate planning attorney, and the author of the Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog, wrote a great article on his thoughts regarding Quicken Software to prepare your estate plan titled Using Quicken to prepare a trust: The good, the bad, and the ugly! You can read his article here:

http://www.floridaestateplanninglawyerblog.com/2008/10/using_quicken_to_prepare_a_tru.html

He really makes some great points.  This same analysis can be applied to any of the Do-it-yourself estate planning software, such as Suze Orman or any others.  In conclusion David writes:

There are many mistakes in the Quicken documents, most disturbing might be some of the things that are not included in a Quicken trust. Quicken gives none of the flexibility to a trust that make it useful for the common person. A trustee under a Quicken trust could not do anything without creating liability to a beneficiary because by default they must act as a prudent trustee. If you have a trust created by Quicken 2009, 2008, 2007 or a previous version, you should have it reviewed by an estate planning lawyer.

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Posted in Estate Planning, Living Trusts | No Comments »

The Problem With Michigan Trust Mills

Written by Christopher J. Berry, Esq. on October 31, 2008 – 10:03 am -

A financial planner friend of mine had me review an estate plan of a couple the other day.  This couple had their estate plan done by one of the many “trust mills” in Michigan.

By trust mill, i mean a set up where they only meet their attorney once (if at all), and there is little to no customization done for an individuals estate plan.  In other words, it is just a fill in the blank estate plan.

Typically, people are put into one of these “estate plans” by unreputable financial professionals who will tell potential clients that they can have a trust based estate plan with unlimited revisions for a set price.  One way they do this is offer an “Estate Planning Seminar” where they will have an example trust in a pretty binder, then tell everyone they can have their plan done for a set fee, say $2250.  This epitomizes a one-size fits all approach to estate planning, that doesn’t take into account the actual needs of the client.  Typically, salesman use this trust as a loss leader to sell clients annuities.

As an estate planning attorney who actually values his clients, there is no way i would be able to quote a fee with out knowing exactly what the clients goals are and how complex it will be to meet those goals.

Back to the couple I met with.  In addition to the usual problems with trust mill prepared plans, they also had three very important issues that I raised with them.

First, as a married couple, their residence was funded into the trust.  In Michigan, we have what is called tenancy-in-the-entireties, which is a special designation created by the state for real property.  This status gives married couples added benefits against creditors, predators, the IRS, and lawsuits.  Well, someone, either the financial professional or attorney, told the clients to fund the residence into the trust, thereby destroying the added protection the couple had as married couples.

Second, the couple both had what is called “springing” powers of attorney.  This is a counseling question to determine the type of financial power of attorney to use.  After counseling the clients, they realized that they were in the wrong type of financial power of attorney.  Luckily, they have not yet had to rely on it.

Third, their healthcare directives were out of date and not valid.  This attorney who prepared their documents promised to stay in touch every year to review their estate plan (which is supposed to be free, including amendments).  Well the attorney never did.  So, I pointed out the changes necessary to bring the healthcare directives up to date.  Our firm has a systematized membership program called Foundations that clients can opt into that will maintain their plan through the years.

The good news, the couple was able to see the mistakes and correct them before they had to rely on the faulty documents.  The bad news, the couple is going back to the original attorney to have the documents corrected, since they have free changes for life.

You get what you pay for…

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Posted in Advanced Health Care Directive, Estate Planning, Foundations, Living Trusts, Personal Reflections, Powers of Attorney | No Comments »