Estate Planning

A critical part of estate planning involves understanding the tools available to you, including wills and trusts. While both are designed to help you manage and distribute your assets, they function differently and have unique benefits.

A will is a legal document that specifies how your assets will be distributed and who will care for minor children after your passing. However, it must go through probate, a court-supervised process that can be time-consuming, costly, and public. This can delay the distribution of your assets and expose your family to additional expenses and scrutiny.

A trust, on the other hand, allows you to bypass probate. It places your assets into a legal entity that holds and manages them according to your instructions, both during your lifetime and after your death. Trusts offer greater privacy, quicker distribution of assets, and more control over how and when beneficiaries receive their inheritance.