Trusts are important financial instruments in estate planning. Unlike a will, with a trust, you can legally arrange your estate in a way that saves your family a substantial amount of money on taxes, avoids probate and those expenses, and distributes your assets according to your wishes after you're gone.

What is a Trust?

The most common type of trust is a legal arrangement that someone sets up to designate what will happen to their assets upon their death. Typically, such trusts name a “trustee,” a person who’ll be responsible for carrying out the trust’s instructions.

The person setting up the trust, known as the “trustor” or “grantor,” also names beneficiaries of the trust funds. Beneficiaries are the people who’ll receive the assets when the trustor dies.

A trustee is legally appointed by the trustor to be responsible for managing the funds for the beneficiaries of the trust. You probably know that beneficiaries...

Hello all,

I am attorney Margaret L. Webb of Legacy Legal & Business Services PLC. It is hard to believe that I just began working on my 16th year of practice. One of my main areas of practice is estate planning and I have seen my fair share of Estate Planning Fraud and Trust Mills. When thinking back over my experience, I have compiled some tips that I thought you would find helpful:

1) Do not be pressured into a trust on an in-home sales pitch; Now if you are or your loved one is not able to get out of the house it is certainly appropriate to invite an attorney to your house, but when the attorney or sales agent invites their self to your home then that should be a red flag.

2) The situation is suspect for trust scams if the person is selling annuities as well as trust packages as they are making money on both; Early in my career, I had an elderly woman fall for one of these type scenarios and we had to go to court to have an irrevocable trust revoked. This is no easy feat as...