What is a Pour-Over Will and How Does it Relate to Your Living Trust
If you are looking into creating a will or living trust, you likely have heard of the concept of a pour over will. Pour over wills are designed to make it easier for you to leave assets to your family without having to deal with too many legal inconveniences. However, many people don’t realize that they actually might be a good candidate for a pour-over will because they aren’t familiar of the intricacies that come along with these types of wills. In this article, we’ll cover the complexities of pour-over wills and how they can be used to fund your living trust after you pass away.
A pour over will is very simple – all it is designed to do is transfer the property in it to your living trust once you die. There are many advantages to putting your assets in a living trust, the main one being that your family does not have to go through probate court. Probate court is very time consuming and stressful, and can also cost your family money in fees. If you put your property in a living trust, it automatically transfers to a trustee upon your passing, who then distributes the assets for you according to your wishes. By using a living trust, your family has access to your assets within a month or two of your passing, something that would not happen with a traditional will.
However, when you put your assets into a living trust, this can put some restrictions on them that you may not want to deal with while you are still living. For example, you often are not able to make changes to certain financial assets or types of property while they are in a living trust, but you can if they are listed in a will. A pour over will allows you to have greater access to your property while you are alive. It also makes it very simple for everything to be transferred into a trust at the time of your death.
Pour over wills also make the process of funding your trust much easier, as it is all done with one document. One of the biggest issues that many people have with living trusts is that they forget to fund them or don’t fund them properly, and then the assets never transfer into the trust accordingly. A pour over will takes care of the transfer process for you so you don’t have to worry about it.
It is very important to note that there is still a chance that the property from your pour over will may have to go through probate. This depends on the specific type of property and your state’s laws regarding pour over wills. This can increase the amount of time it takes for the assets to get to your living trust. However, the simplicity of a pour-over will is relatively simple to address in court, making the process much easier for the court to deal with in many cases.
What many people choose to do with their property is put some of it in a living trust right away, and then create a pour over will for the rest of the property so that it can be transferred at your time of death. This ends up being beneficial for everyone involved, as some of your assets will be immediately distributed to your beneficiaries, while others will need to go through the probate process and transfer. You’ll have more control over your assets both in life and death with this strategy, which is why so many people choose it. It is advised to work with a lawyer when putting together to make your pour over will to ensure that everything is handled legally.
