Knowledge
Trust funding, plan maintenance, and trust settlement are fundamental to effective, reliable estate plans. Without them, estate plans routinely fail to meet their objectives. Information about these essential estate planning services is surprisingly scarce. In fact, clients often never even hear about the importance trust funding, plan maintenance, and routine updating. That's because these tasks are daunting, complex, and can drain firm resources. Too often attorneys don't appreciate how critical these services are to sound and sensible estate planning. We help overcome these hurdles by making vital services attractive to implement and offer.
Since 1998 we have furnished conscientious estate planners with the FundingPro™ and SettlementPro™ software systems to facilitate and manage these critical client services. Besides providing software tools to automate and streamline tasks, we supply training and educational resources to build profitable and productive practice systems supporting these services. Estate planners use FundingPro™ and SettlementPro™ to help grow their firms and serve client families now and into the next generation.
About
Trust Funding
Funding a trust involves legally transferring assets from their current ownership title and beneficiary designations to the name of your trust. Unfortunately, because many trusts are never funded, most trust plans fail to meet their objectives. Why is that? Because trust funding is complicated. Each asset must be evaluated individually to determine the correct funding approach and then accomplish that particular transfer action. Trust funding can be time-consuming and cumbersome to complete. At death or disability, trust settlement is more costly and complicated when the trust isn't funded. A qualified estate planning attorney with experience in trust funding can facilitate the transfer of your assets to coordinate effectively with your estate plan goals, accomplish these objectives, and take care of your loved ones.
About
Trust Settlement
Trust Settlement comprises the administrative and legal procedures of executing a trust plan upon the trustmaker's death or disability. Trust settlement typically involves a variety of practical and legal tasks in carrying out the instructions contained in the trust document. Transferring your assets to your trust during lifetime can ensure your estate plan works as you intend. The costs and effort in settling an unfunded trust increase dramatically if your assets aren't coordinated with your estate plan. Regrettably, most trusts aren't properly funded, making settlement more costly and difficult than it should be. These poor outcomes are preventable. A conscientious estate planner facilitates trust funding and trust updating to ensure the client's plan is effective, current, and ready when needed. Trust funding and plan maintenance reduce expenses and the time it takes to complete the settlement.