I Used to Think a Will Was the Best Way to Pass Down an Inheritance. Here's Why I Now Think a Living Trust Is Better.

This article is intended for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. For guidance on your personal situation, please contact a lawyer.

Estate planning isn't exactly a fun thing to think about. So when my husband and I put our wills together years ago, we thought we'd done our part to arrange for an inheritance and could therefore call it day.

But since that time, I've done a lot of reading on living trusts. And I'm now convinced that a living trust is a much better option for passing down an inheritance. When you see why I think that way, you might end up feeling the same.

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The problem with writing a will

Putting together a will is pretty easy, especially if you do so under the guidance of an attorney who knows what they're doing. But there's a big problem with using a will to pass along an inheritance.

For heirs to actually claim their assets from an estate, a will needs to go through probate, which is the process of proving its validity in a court of law. Probate can be an expensive process that eats into your estate's funds. It can also take months on end and drag out in situations where your estate is somewhat complicated.

But that's not even my main issue with probate and writing a will. What I didn't know at the time I wrote my will was that as part of the probate process, wills become a matter of public record. This means that any person out there can dig up details of your family's finances and find out what your heirs stand to inherit.

That's something that does not sit well with me. I'm a private person by nature. But when it comes to my family's finances, you can bet that I don't want those details shared.

Money is a personal thing. As a matter of course, I don't walk around talking about my bank account balance or salary with most of the people I know. So why would I want random folks to have the ability to learn details of my family's finances by searching through public records?

A living trust solves the problem

Because wills could lead to a serious invasion of privacy, I'm leaning toward a living trust instead of a will for my estate planning. A living trust does not need to go through probate the way a will does, so its details can be kept private. If that's as important to you as it is to me, then I suggest you meet with an estate planning attorney and discuss your options.

Now I will warn that there may be a higher cost involved in setting up a living trust compared to writing a will. But if you value your family's privacy, then the extra money may be more than worth it. And either way, it pays to talk to an attorney and learn about those costs, because they may be more reasonable than you'd think.

Keep in mind that the costs you face will likely hinge on the complexity of your estate. But the same holds true for a will, so make sure to do an apples-to-apples comparison if you're deciding between both options.

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