What are some key differences between wills and trusts?
There are many important differences between wills and trusts. While wills allow you to provide basic instructions about what should happen to your assets, trusts give you much more control over the assets. With a will, for example, you could simply specify that your son will inherit your money. If you create a trust, you can name your son as the beneficiary and name a trustee to manage the money. You could provide specific conditions for when your son is given the money and impose restrictions on how much money he is given at one time.
Trusts not only give you more control, but can also help you to protect assets, to plan for the management of your assets in case of incapacity, to address special situations like leaving money to a disabled child, and to allow assets to transfer outside of probate. It is important you understand all of the different things a trust can do that a will cannot do.