A Trust Is A Valuable Estate Planning Tool

When planning your estate, you have many potential options that will help you maintain control over your assets and avoid unnecessary taxes. As with any tool, understanding them is critical to properly utilizing them.

Attorney Neil Thompson, the founder of the Law Office of Neil Thompson, has extensive experience in estate planning law. He uses a personalized, thoughtful approach to estate planning for clients from Bloomington, Alexandria and across Minnesota.

We Answer Your Questions On Trusts

Attorney Neil Thompson relishes the opportunity to answer his clients’ most challenging questions. To get you started, here are the answers to a couple of the more common questions we get:

What Is A Trust?

A trust is a legal entity you may create. Generally, a trust can be either:

• Revocable: Also called a living trust. Dissolvable by you, the grantor, at any time. Helpful in avoiding probate but does not always avoid estate taxes. Still under your direct control.
• Irrevocable: Nondissolvable. Under the control of a trustee. The grantor cannot alter it. Assets transferred to irrevocable trusts are no longer in your estate. Helps avoid estate taxes.

To be sure, there are various and distinct trust types, but to pursue the appropriate one, you would need to speak with a skilled attorney.

What Elements Are Included In A Trust?

There are several basic legal necessities for creating a trust. The documents of the trust often identify three important parties:

• Grantor: Also called the settlor, donor, transferor or testator. The grantor is the party that decides to create the trust and assign assets to it.
• Beneficiary: This party is the person who receives the payments or use of the trust.
• Trustee: This is the party with ultimate control over the trust – though they must follow the trust’s established rules and have a fiduciary duty to the trust and the beneficiary.

Overall, the basic construction of a trust includes the identities of those individuals. It may also lay down specific operation rules.

Get Skilled Advice From An Experienced Attorney

Attorney Neil Thompson has over 20 years of experience as an attorney but more than 30 decades of experience as a small business owner. He understands the challenges of business owners and those with complex assets.

Contact us to learn more about how we can help you by calling 612-246-4788.