Living Trust for Home

[Fullhouse11]

My husband and I have been in the same house since his first year out of fellowship, 14 years. We are listed as joint owners. We are in the process of moving and buying our new home. Now that our assets have grown, is there a benefit to putting the house in a living trust? We have one set up already and have been told that it would be a good idea. How hard is it to do? Any downsides or significant benefits?

[jfoxcpacfp]

Not really unless you have a good reason to do so and are putting other assets into the trust. A living trust has no impact on your estate taxes and does not provide liability protection. This blog post I just wrote may help:

How and When a Trust Can Help You

[spiritrider]

I agree with Johanna and the points in her referenced blog post.

I would add that living trusts are like using LLCs and S-Corps for business entities. They are very valuable in many, but not all circumstances. In fact all three can be counter-productive.

Most lawyers are very ethical professionals, but remember like many finance professionals they have a vested interest in selling you a product/service. Like most personal finance you need to do your own due diligence.

This and the fact that all three tend to have a consensus that they are always valuable, leads them to be overused. Your family, in-laws, friends and acquaintances are not a good sources of this information. The fact that someone else has used them, does not mean they are suitable for you or them for that matter.

[StarTrekDoc]

Sounds like it's a good time for you to sit down with a financial planner to double check on your long term planning and things just like this is discussed on the pro/cons and setting goals and then identifying the proper vehicles and mechanisms to get you to those goals.

Lots of resources for that on WCI for this for the professionals.

My opinion -- Living Trust is a good vehicle for estate planning for the majority of people on this forum.

[adventure]

^^ Agreed.

 

Also, congrats on the house! Good luck moving.