Our last article covered many of the reasons why our clients hire us to create trusts for them. Those reasons range from keeping their family out of probate court to maintaining complete privacy of the estate.
You need an Attorney specializing in Trusts & Estate planning
Many people want to know how to set up a trust. The first step in the process involves consulting with an attorney. Unlike creating a will, you won’t be able to draft your own trust. There are just too many details involved. How is that so?
First, understand that a will is simply your expression of how you want your assets distributed at death. Whether hand-written, or formally prepared by a lawyer, a judge will interpret your will and attempt to follow it.
But a trust is meant to accomplish so much more than a simple will. For this reason, trusts are much more complicated than wills.
Anyone contemplating drafting their own trust is flirting with disaster. Besides, cost is not the issue for this category of clients. Anyone that actually needs a trust will be able to afford one. If creating a trust seems overwhelming, or “overkill” for your estate, or excessively expensive for your situation, the truth is… it might be. Not every situation calls for complex planning.
However, every family deserves (and needs) at a minimum, a foundational plan, which we consider to be a last will and testament, a financial power of attorney, a healthcare power of attorney, and a state medical directive. We often recommending adding a trust (or series of trusts) to the plan when the situation calls for it, but not every client needs a trust.
How do you know if you need a trust?
In this article, we will show you what that process looks like when you contact our office to discuss setting up a trust for your estate in Oklahoma.
Schedule your 15-Minute Discovery call
We first start with a brief phone call. On this call, you will quickly realize whether you need to continue exploring this legal need. Do you need a trust? What type of trust? Do you need multiple trusts?
We won’t be able to answer these questions over the phone. But what we will be able to decide is whether you’re a good fit for a Life and Legacy Planning Session. We will explain exactly what that is and our scheduling availability for those sessions. You will decide whether you want to book the session, and whether you’d like to pay for it, or do the “homework” in advance to get the fee waived.
Schedule your in-person consultation with estate planning lawyer
We do things a little differently than other lawyers. We don’t charge hourly fees for estate planning. And we do the little things that make a big difference. Our clients leave our planning sessions informed and empowered. This education provides peace of mind, and also allows you to live a more intentional life, because you have contemplated the hard questions and made firm decisions.
Call us at 405-607-7799 to schedule your Life & Legacy Planning Session.
At your planning session, you will be greeted by our office and led to one of our conference rooms. You will have completed the intake “homework” in advance, so your attorney will already be familiar with basic aspects of your estate. In your planning session, we will spend about 45 minutes to an hour going over the current state of affairs, and you will see what would happen to your assets and your family members with the current plan or lack thereof. You will identify what you do and don’t like about these outcomes, and what you would like changed.
From there, we will spend the second half of the session actually designing these optimal outcomes for you. In the design phase, we will work backwards from your chosen outcomes to design a plan that will accomplish those objectives.
All of our plans are flat fee, with no surprise bills. You choose the plan, you choose the price, and we execute your wishes.
Oklahoma City Trust & Estates Attorney
Travis Charles Smith is an attorney in downtown Oklahoma City, serving clients throughout central Oklahoma. Originally a trial lawyer, Travis now helps clients avoid courtroom conflict with estate planning and business planning that is proactive instead of reactive.