Is Contesting a Trust Harder Than Contesting a Will During Probate?
By Barry Zimmer on November 21st, 2017 in Wills & Trusts
Trust attorneys at Zimmer Law Firm will help you to determine if you should make a trust as part of your estate plan. There are many significant advantages to the creation of a trust, and trusts are both a versatile and a powerful estate planning tool, so it is a very good idea to talk with an attorney about whether trusts are right for you.
Your attorney should discuss all of the different benefits of creating a trust that could be applicable to your specific situation. One of the advantages that trust attorneys at Zimmer Law Firm can discuss with you is the fact it can be harder to contest a trust than it can be to contest a will.
Contesting a Trust is More Difficult Than Contesting A Will
When you make a last will and testament, there is always a risk that your will could be contested during the probate process. Although you could potentially insert a no contest clause into your trust, all this would do is essentially penalize a person who decides to contest a trust and who isn’t successful at it– it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that no one in your family will decide to challenge the trust you have left behind.
If your will is contested successfully, it won’t be probated and the plans you had made for your legacy will not come to fruition. The careful instructions you may have provided in your will regarding who should inherit assets will be disregarded and you will have lost control over the chance to transfer your assets to the people of your choosing.
You want to do everything possible to make sure that this doesn’t happen, which means working with Zimmer Law Firm to ensure that you follow all of the laws and legal formalities required in the creation of a will. Unfortunately, even when you do everything by the book, there are some limited circumstances where a convincing case can be made that you acted under duress, acted because of fraud, or were not mentally sound when you created your will. Although you may not actually have acted under duress, fraud or while of an unsound mind, you’d no longer be around to stand up for yourself once your will was being probated.
If you want to reduce the chances to a minimum that your wishes will successfully be contested after you have passed away, you should strongly consider creating a trust. A trust allows you to specify who should inherit assets after you have passed on, and allows you to name a trustee with a fiduciary duty who will administer the trust after you pass away. The trust administration process is distinct from the probate process, and assets held within the trust pass outside of the probate process.
A trust still can be contested, even though trust assets transfer outside of the probate process when everything goes smoothly. However, when you create a living trust, you typically make this trust a long time before you pass away. You can name yourself as the primary trustee and name someone else as a backup trustee to take charge of trust assets in case of your incapacity and to handle the trust administration process after you pass away. Since you are involved in the administration of the trust throughout your lifetime, it is much harder for someone to argue after your death that you did not intend for the trust to be administered as you had specified.
Zimmer Law Firm can assist you with following the legal formalities necessary for trust creation and can help you to create a trust document that makes your wishes clear so you can maximize the chances your intended beneficiaries will inherit as you desire them to after you have passed away.
Getting Help from Trust Attorneys
If you want to create a trust to increase the chances your wishes will be respected and your assets will go to your intended heirs or beneficiaries, Zimmer Law Firm is here to help. We can also assist you in exploring other uses of trusts, and other legal tools that can help you to pass on an inheritance in accordance with your wishes.
To find out more about all of the different services that we provide to give you control over your legacy, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at 513.721.1513 to get personalized one-on-one help with your legacy plan. Call now to get assistance making a trust or taking the other estate planning steps that are right for you.