I am frickin' ticked off. An elderly client just came in b/c her husband passed away and she doesn't know what to do with the estate. She brought in all the estate planning documents and the 70 page, extremely complicated TRUST. This thing is ridiculous. They have a sum total of about $500K in assets, and that includes their home. That's IT. There is no reason for this ridiculous thing that they paid $5000 for. NONE. And now, because he died, part of the damn thing is irrevocable.
FIVE THOUSAND dollars charged to an elderly couple for something they absolutely did not need and that complicates the estate more than probate would.
FYI - not everybody needs a trust.
__________________
LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Yeah, trusts are for rich people. A simple will is what most families need. Sorry you have to deal with this & I feel really bad for your client. I hope it doesn't hurt her financially having everything in the trust.
I went to a lawyer to do our wills. And, the lawyer wanted me to have our Life Insurance go to the Estate in a trust or something. Why would i put Life Insurance money into the Estate? That didnt' make sense. He wanted me to change the beneficiary from my kids to the Estate. No freaking way! And, then he wanted to set up some stupid complicated thing so i left. We just wanted some simple wills.
Good on you for walking out Gaga. It sounds like he was trying to make things way more complicated than they needed to be.
The lawyer my family went to was great. He was helpful & did exactly what we needed. A will, a medical power of attorney & a third thing. I can't remember. It's been 12 years now. It might be a financial power of attorney so if I'm incapacitated someone can take care of my bills.
My lawyer, the one I used to do my will, disappeared.
No one has seen or heard from him in about 20 years.
He just disappeared.
__________________
A flock of flirting flamingos is pure, passionate, pink pandemonium-a frenetic flamingle-mangle-a discordant discotheque of delirious dancing, flamboyant feathers, and flamingo lingo.
we have a couple of family trusts that have been around for over a hundred years--my lady and i have two trusts that basically own just about everything--our main concern is potential personal liability arising from a couple or three things we do to earn our personal income
__________________
" the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. "--edmund burke
