Monday, April 2, 2012

CGIO's Billsbest: Living Trusts Protect Financial Privacy

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CGIO's Billsbest: Living Trusts Protect Financial Privacy
Posted By: Susoni [Send E-Mail]
Date: Monday, 2-Apr-2012 23:30:52

Living Trusts Protect Financial Privacy
by Bill Rounds
We Are All Going To Die!…Someday
When we die the court system will take control of our financial lives and make one of the most private aspects of our lives public. This loss of financial privacy will happen unless we take one simple step to protect ourselves, our assets and our families with a living trust.
Probate is the Problem With Financial Privacy
When people die they leave behind some stuff (hopefully). Most people have a will, if they have anything at all, to determine who gets all of their neat stuff. To administer this process, for people who do or do not have a will, the courts take control of all the assets, make sure all the money goes to the right people, and make your will a part of the public record. This is called probate. Anyone particularly interested in learning what your kids got will be able to find out very easily. Some courts even make the information available online. This is a huge blow to financial privacy.
Living Trust
The only way to avoid having so much of your private financial life displayed for the public is to prepare a living trust. A living trust allows you to maintain control over your assets while you are alive, avoids the public probate process to distribute assets when you die and maintains your financial privacy.
There are some other great benefits as well. Compared to the cost of administering a living trust, probate is expensive. The cost is based on the value of the assets that the probate court deals with, so the more money you have, the more it will cost you. Probate is also slower.
Don’t Get Hit By A Bus
What happens in the unfortunate event that you are hit by a bus and turned into a vegetable? Whether or not you have a will, your assets are going to sit around and can’t be touched. They can’t be used to pay your medical expenses, they can’t be used to pay your mortgage, they can’t be used to pay for the groceries of your stalwart spouse. This can pose a very bad problem when assets exist to pay those costs, but you are incapacitated, covered in bandages and unable to get at those assets.
With a living trust, the unfortunate bus incident will not leave your assets untouchable until you die. The trustee can use the assets to pay for expenses while you are still alive but unable to manage your own affairs. This makes sure that the family members who are diligently at your hospital bed side can pay for the things they need, hopefully balloons and get well cards.
Living Trusts Are Common
The cost of having a basic living trust prepared is relative to its complexity. If your financial situation is simple, they can be quite inexpensive. If your financial situation is more complex, it will be worth the cost and effort to draft an adequate living trust. Many attorneys are able to prepare them and make sure they are properly funded.
Conclusion
The legal system still contains several tools that help ordinary individuals protect their financial privacy. Having a living will is one of the great ways to take advantage of that system. Living wills provide a private alternative, to public indignity. Check out the book How To Vanish for more legal tools to help protect your privacy.
Reprinted with permission from How to Vanish.
April 2, 2012
Bill Rounds, J.D. is a California attorney. He holds a degree in Accounting from the University of Utah and a law degree from California Western School of Law. He practices civil litigation, domestic and foreign business entity formation and transactions, criminal defense and privacy law. He is a strong advocate of personal and financial freedom and civil liberties.
The Best of Bill Rounds
Living Trusts Protect Financial Privacy
http://chasvoice.blogspot.com/2012/04/living-trusts-protect-financial-privacy.html

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Check with your state attorney Living wills still leave your assets open to creditors. so if you have major medical expenses the doctors or state can still collect the money from you....

Anonymous said...

This is an old paradigm.
To set up a living trust will require a 'trustee'.
Every contract you have ever entered into meant someone acted at 'trustee' over you.
Even in court, they created a 'constructive trust' without your knowledge and consent.
If you know of anyone in jail and sent them money, it was sent to an 'inmate trust fund'.

The new shift removes that 'hidden trust'.
It should never have existed and it existed without our knowledge.

Social Security was a 'trust'.
Our property was held in 'trust' by a birth certificate.

A lot of people are popping up wanting to create trusts on our behalf to hold our assets.

St. Germaine Trust is supposed to hold prosperity program assets.

It was a Deed of Trust that had provisions in it that was used to 'steal our homes from us.'

Anything created without your expressed Will is void ab initio.

We are going back to the original constitution; because it was the original constitution that governed how public officials could act against the people that 'trusted' them to be their leaders.

Some will tell you it's a 'trust' documented with the people as the beneficiaries and the government highjacked it and became the beneficiary of the trust with the 14th amendment.

You'll end up with someone with a title of nobility governing your property again.

Choose wisely.
This time, it will be by your will that things happen to you. If you chose to leave the planet by spaceship, it will be by your will that you walk up to that craft and get onboard.

You will not be able to blame anyone for the decisions you make. That's the responsibility that comes from being in charge of your own freedom and your own life.