Living trusts for single individuals

A living trust is established while you are still alive and is a good option if you’re widowed, divorced, or unmarried. By establishing a living trust, you’re placing your assets in trust and choosing a representative or “successor trustee” who will transfer the assets in the trust to your designated beneficiaries. In addition, if you’re a single person, it’s a good idea to draw up a will to protect the assets that don’t enter into your living trust.

A living trust for single individuals can be set up in conjunction with a durable power of attorney for healthcare. This is especially important if and when you become too ill or disabled to make decisions about what is in your best interest with respect to health care decisions and end-of-life medical treatment. If you’re single and have children, you’ll need to make provisions for guardianship.

Here’s why it’s a good idea

Estate planning, if you’re single, can be a more complicated process than if you’re married primarily because you have to be able to trust that the person you designate as your representative will follow your wishes and instructions. Some of the other cons of setting up a living trust are the time and cost involved. Additionally, you need to carefully consider the type of assets you own and what needs to be done with them to get them funded into your trust.

So, what are the pros? Having an estate plan in place helps to reduce your anxiety about what’s going to happen to your assets when you die as well as reducing the stress on your survivors. If you’re single and should die without a living trust or will in place, your assets will be distributed based on the intestate succession laws of the state of California. Whatever your wishes were for how you wanted your assets to be distributed, they will be distributed according to the law of succession for an unmarried decedent.

A living trust for single individuals is a good option for avoiding a court-supervised guardianship or conservatorship if the individual should become mentally incapacitated. Living trusts are revocable which means that you have the right to make changes to the document while you’re still alive, and, a Revocable Living Trust doesn’t need to be filed in court so it won’t become a matter of public record.

An attorney you can trust

If you’re single, the two most important reasons for establishing a living trust is that it helps your beneficiaries to avoid the costs and hassles of probate and will keep your assets out of court-supervised guardianship.

David Foley, living trust attorney in San Diego, has been practicing estate planning for over twenty five years, and specializes in setting up living trusts as well as other estate planning options. Our living trusts are comprehensive and of the highest quality, but are reasonably priced.

At the Law Office of David W. Foley, California Living Trusts, we are at experienced at drafting the best living trusts for single people.

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