Carlsbad Trust attorney, Andrew Fesler, gives insight into why you need a will even if you have a trust. As a leading attorney in Carlsbad, California, he specializes in estate administration and probate, trust administration, advance directives, business succession planning, and all aspects of estate planning. To learn more about how trusts and wills work together in estate planning, please contact our office, The Law Office of Andrew Fesler, at (760) 444-0943 or message us online.
Transcript:
” The trust will, of course, control the assets that are in the trust. However, there are instances where assets can become mistitled, even if all the proper funding work was done at the time the trust was executed. For example, sometimes, when people refinance a home, even if the home was in the trust at the beginning of the refinancing process, the bank may actually transfer that home back into the name of the client personally, which means now that house is no longer controlled by the trust. In that case, we would hope that on a trust review, which we recommend to have happen every three to five years, the client and the attorney would do a title search and see that that house was not titled properly. However, if something happened to the client and they pass away prior to that mistake being discovered, then we would use what’s called a pour-over will to transfer the house back into the trust at the client’s death. This process is a little more lengthy than it would be if everything was titled perfectly, but it will at least get the assets, in this case, the residents, into the trust so that it can be distributed in the manner that the clients wish.
Wills also do a couple of other things that the trust also can’t do. Clients have the opportunity in their will to make their burial or cremation wishes known. Also, if the client has children who are minors and we need to name guardians for them, that will usually happen in the will document as opposed to someplace else. A will is still necessary for all clients and particularly important for clients with young children, but everybody needs one.”
