When creating a well-rounded estate plan, understanding all your options is key to ensuring that your family will have the perfect plan to follow your wishes after you pass away. Wills may receive the majority of notoriety when it comes to planning for the distribution of your estate, but don’t ignore the benefits that trusts can give you. As an experienced trust attorney in San Antonio, the team at Amsberry Law Firm can help you determine exactly how to incorporate trusts in your estate plan and whether this tool makes sense for your particular situation.
We appreciate the opportunity to help our clients set up their estate plans in the way that they want. We understand the importance of having a plan in place that gives your assets and your beneficiaries the protection you want them to have after you pass away. Our trust attorney will give you the peace of mind that comes with knowing that the settlement of your estate will go as smoothly as possible. For an initial consultation, contact us at (210) 354-2244. We serve clients in the San Antonio area, as well as in the surrounding counties.
How Our Trust Lawyer in San Antonio Can Help With Your Situation
Our trust lawyers know that topics related to trusts and estate planning can be difficult to understand when you don’t deal with them every day. That’s why our team’s level of experience is so important. Russell Amsberry founded our firm nearly three decades ago with a focus on estate law and family law. We’ve given hundreds of clients the results they want with their estate planning needs, which often includes the setting up of trusts.
Our San Antonio trust attorney can clearly help you understand the difference between a will and a trust. After you hire us, we will spell out all your options for estate planning, and we will provide advice on how we think you should proceed. As always, however, the final decision rests with you.
Our Trust Attorney in San Antonio Will Focus on the Most Important Items That Apply to You
Because our estate planning lawyer has so much experience with setting up estate plans and trusts, we are able to ask all the right questions of our clients. We know how to help you zero in on the aspects of setting up a trust or of creating an estate plan that are the most important to you – even if you have never given this topic any thought before arriving at our offices.
For example, some of our clients are highly interested in avoiding having the estate go to probate court in Texas. As the Texas State Law Library discusses, many estates will need to go through probate, but setting up a trust can help your family avoid having to do this. Going through probate court can be a challenging process for your heirs, and it can require a long time, delaying the settlement of your estate. If avoiding probate is important to you, you can be confident that we will do everything required to create a trust that accomplishes this after you pass away.
Our Trust Attorney in San Antonio Can Help You Understand Your Options Regarding Trusts
Deciding that you would like to have our trust attorney in San Antonio help you set up a trust is only the first step. You then will need to decide exactly what kind of trust you would like to use, based on how you would like the distribution of your assets to go and how the trustee should handle the process. Texas Property Code Title 9 discusses the different ways that trustees must behave when overseeing a trust. After interviewing you and learning about your situation, our team will be able to figure out exactly which type of trust is the best option to meet your needs.
Revocable Trusts
The revocable trust – also called a living trust or a revocable living trust – is the most popular type of trust that we use with our clients in Texas. When you want to avoid probate, the revocable trust is a great means of doing this. It is a useful type of trust, as you can do things like placing your home into the revocable trust while continuing to live in the home. Once you pass away, the trustee that you name as part of the revocable trust will oversee the asset distribution.
Another key aspect of the revocable trust is that after you set up the trust and place your assets into it, you have the ability to revoke the trust or to modify the terms of the trust at any point during your life. Once you pass away, however, no one is able to change the terms of the revocable trust (except under rare circumstances). There certainly are advantages and disadvantages to revocable trusts, and our team at Amsberry Law Firm can help you decide whether this is the best route for you to go in your estate planning situation.
Irrevocable Trusts
The primary thing to understand with an irrevocable trust is that once you create it, there is no ability to revoke or even amend it. You cannot change the items included in the irrevocable trust, nor can you change the beneficiaries of the trust. The primary benefit of the irrevocable trust is that the assets are no longer part of your taxable estate once the assets enter the trust. You also do not have to pay taxes yourself on any gains in value the assets have while they exist in the irrevocable trust.
Crummey Trust
A Crummey trust may have an unfortunate name, but it is a useful tool for the grantor who wants to create a trust that works nicely for beneficiaries who are children. Typically, when you place a gift in a trust, it does not qualify for the annual gift tax exclusion. However, with the Crummey trust, you can place these gifts into the trust each year without forcing the recipient to pay taxes on the amount of the gift.
If you currently want to give a gift of up to $16,000 to children, under the gift tax exclusion, you can do so annually without triggering taxes, even if you don’t use the Crummey trust. However, if you would rather that the child doesn’t have access to the money until you pass away and when the child will be older and better able to handle large sums of money, you can place these gifts into the Crummey trust now, rather than giving the gift directly to the child, without triggering a tax bill for the child. Before we set up a Crummey trust for you, we will explain some of the requirements that these trusts have to follow to avoid sparking IRS audits or other tax issues. This type of trust requires some specific documentation, and our team can help with all aspects of it.
Commonly Asked Questions for Our San Antonio Trust Attorney
Our clients know about our dedication to their financial well-being, which is why they feel so comfortable discussing their financial goals with our team and asking us any questions they have. When you hire us, know that our trust lawyer in San Antonio will constantly be available to answer your questions. Here are some of the most common questions clients have for us. We hope our answers to these questions will help you gain a feel for how we tackle topics related to estate planning and trusts.
Do I actually need to set up a trust?
Our trust attorney in San Antonio would never say that every person needs or doesn’t need a trust. Whether a trust is beneficial in your particular situation will depend on your individual needs and circumstances. Whether you should use a trust is not a recommendation we would make without taking the time to learn more about you. So, do you need a trust? The best answer we can give until we meet with you and discuss your wants and needs is “maybe.”
Should I use a trust or a will in Texas?
Importantly, a trust can help you avoid the probate process, unlike a will. However, a trust costs more to set up ahead of time than a will, as you’ll be paying many of the legal expenses at the time you set up the trust. The trust does create far fewer legal costs after your death, whereas the will triggers certain costs as it goes through probate. Unlike a will going through probate, a trust will not become a public document upon your death, allowing you and your heirs to keep your assets private.
Are there disadvantages to using a trust?
Although a trust has quite a few advantages, there are a few aspects of using this means of estate planning that our trust attorney in San Antonio would point out as potential disadvantages. First, trusts will have expenses associated with them at the time you create them. Second, compared to wills, revocable trusts tend to require more updating between the time you create them and the time of your passing, which some people will dislike. (If you don’t want to worry about updating the trust regularly, you can consider the irrevocable trust format.) Trusts aren’t perfect for every situation, and our trust lawyers will be able to give you advice on whether this means of estate planning is right for you and your heirs.
How does a trust differ from an estate and estate planning?
The trust is a tool used during the estate planning process. You and our trust attorney in San Antonio could set up the trust as part of creating your estate plan. The trust is a legal entity that holds assets until you pass away. It then provides instructions for distributing the assets. The estate is the collection of assets you hold at the time of your death. The estate doesn’t exist until you pass away.
Do I have to hire trust lawyers who specialize in estate planning and trusts?
Nothing in Texas state law requires people to hire a specific type of lawyer to help them with setting up a trust or with estate planning. However, when you hire someone with extensive experience in this area, such as Amsberry Law Firm’s trust attorney in San Antonio, you receive the peace of mind that all your documents will meet the legal requirements in Texas. Hiring an attorney who has little to no experience with trusts could leave your family with a legal mess after you pass away, should that inexperienced attorney make an error during the process.
What does it cost to hire a trust attorney?
We charge fees based on the services we provide for you and the time it takes to deliver those services. We will discuss our fees with you the first time we meet with you, once we have an idea of the kinds of needs you have.
Know That Our Trust Attorney in San Antonio Will Always Have Your Best Interests in Mind
It is difficult for people to think about a time when they no longer will be able to handle their own finances. It always seems like there will be plenty of time to worry about estate planning and setting up wills and trusts. We understand these thoughts, as talking and thinking about your eventual death is not a comfortable topic. It’s easier to put off the discussion for another day.
Unfortunately, none of us knows exactly when we may need to make use of a trust. Our San Antonio trust attorney always recommends seeing our team now to create your trust, estate plan, will, or other legal document you may need in case of an emergency situation. By taking care of these items now, you are ready for any eventuality. Additionally, you will have peace of mind knowing that the necessary documents are in place and ready to protect your assets and your family. Should you need to update any of the documents later as your situation changes, our trust lawyer in San Antonio likely can rework the documents, depending on the type of trust you use.
Amsberry Law Firm’s Trust Attorney in San Antonio Can Help With All Your Estate Planning Requirements
Whether you have no estate planning documents in place, you have documents that our team or another attorney helped you create that need reviewing, or anything in between, the team at Amsberry Law Firm is ready to help. We know the estate planning rules in Texas inside and out, and we will be ready to give you the high level of service that you deserve.
We serve clients throughout San Antonio, Bexar County, and the surrounding counties. We understand the inner workings of the probate courts in Bexar County and in the counties surrounding San Antonio, which gives us the ability to serve all of our clients efficiently and successfully, regardless of whether they live inside San Antonio or elsewhere in southern Texas. For an initial meeting about your situation, contact us today at (210) 354-2244.
Attorney Russell J.G. Amsberry
Attorney Russell J.G. Amsberry founded the Amsberry Law Firm in 1995 with the goal of providing clients with exceptional, focused representation on their issues. His success as a legal advocate has been reflected in the numerous professional honors he has received, such as speaking engagements and inclusion in Scene in SA magazine’s listing of the best lawyers in San Antonio, a Distinguished rating from Martindale-Hubble, and an amazing rating from Avvo. [ Attorney Bio ]
