When’s the right time to create a trust? I’m Michael Jenkins and as an estate planning attorney in San Diego, we get this question quite a bit and I think it stems a lot from a misconception that you have to be a certain age or achieve a certain amount of wealth before you put together an estate plan or incorporate a trust as part of your estate plan and the truth is when you have something to protect, that’s when it’s time to set up a trust.
So if you own real property, you have minor children or your stuff and financial accounts are over the probate threshold in California, that’s a good time to set up an estate plan. If you have real property, you really need a trust to make sure that that property stays out of probate court should something happen to you. If you have minor kids, you really need a trust to hold onto property for them until they age into whatever age you think is appropriate to inherit so that the court doesn’t take care of that for you later in a more burdensome way, and if you own property over the probate threshold, that means if you own stuff that’s valued above whatever the state limit is right now, it’s about $166,000.00, that’s a good time to set up a trust as well so that that stuff doesn’t end up in probate.
So anytime you have something to protect and we want to keep it out of probate court, that’s the right time to set up an estate plan and incorporate a trust. Now, if you have any questions around whether a trust is right for you, or if not, what should be part of your estate plan, always feel free to give our trust attorneys in San Diego a call. Get in touch with us and send us an email, send us a text, we’re here, and we’re happy to help.
Related post: 4 Reasons to Incorporate a Trust into Your Estate Plan
