Helping Federal Employees and Annuitants Understand Their Benefits
Federal Employee's CSRS & FERS Wills & Trusts
All retiree’s and their spouses should have a will. A will is the basic tool that you need to distribute your assets to those who you wish to inherit it. Trusts have many benefits and several of the major ones are probate avoidance, the ability to list any asset in the trust even those items such as collectables that don’t have legal registrations like homes, stocks and bonds.
Property left by a will is subject to probate and you can avoid probate with the use of joint tenancy, Pay On Death (POD) asset registration, beneficiary designations, and basic revocable living trusts. When you use these probate avoidance methods the main purpose of the will is to designate a guardian for minor children, transfer some property that is difficult to transfer otherwise such as vehicles, and to transfer all residual estate property to your heirs.
The will captures your residual estate that includes unexpected gifts, lottery winnings, or asset acquisitions that you did not have time to register using other probate avoidance techniques. Plan Your Estate is an estate planning guide that describes everything you need to know and what to do in easy-to-follow steps.
Use the following easy to use software to complete your last wills and testament, Power of Attorney, Health Directives, and HIPPA Directive. Plus LegalZoom includes an option to discuss your will with an attorney.
Will Software
Estate Plan Bundle on LegalZoomAll federal employees who are approaching retirement and those who are already retired who haven’t completed an estate plan can use these resources to guide them through this process. If you have complex issues to deal with contact an estate planning attorney to help you draft your documents.
CAUTION: If you hire an attorney hold them to an estimated price for their services. Many charge high hourly rates, sometimes in the $300 to $400 dollar range. Every time you call or email them with a question you receive a bill. Ask them about their fee schedule and what charges you can expect when you need clarifications about your documents. Find an attorney that will draft your documents for a fixed price and not bill hourly. If you can't find one that will do them for a fixed rate, ask them for a price range and hold them to it.
Another concern is the language many attorneys use in your wills and trusts, ask for a list of terms used with explanations of each that describe their meaning in everyday language. I don't understand why they must use what seems to be 17th century language in new documents. I believe Willmaker does provide such a list.
A living trust is a document that allows you to transfer property direct to your heirs after your death without going through probate. Probate delays the distribution of your assets for a year or longer and the attorney costs can be as much as 5% or more of the estate’s value.
Trusts are ideal for transferring stocks, bonds, homes, collectables, antiques, and other assets that you can’t easily transfer through POD, joint tenancy or beneficiary designations. Typically you name the trust after the originator, called the trustee. For example if you have stocks that you want to add to your trust you would transfer registration from your name to “(Your Name), as trustee for the (Your Name) Trust.”
The Living Trust Estate Planning on LegalZoom includes an
option to discuss your document with an attorney.
Plus, it includes a pour-over will, all you need for
your estate. Here is a list of the included documents:
With the attorney review option you can make revisions for up to one year, attorney advice for the family, and more. When you select the trust option you do not need to pay for a will, a pour-over will is included with this package.
As trustee you have full control over all assets in the trust for as long as you live. You can sell all trust assets and use them anyway you choose. Only after you die does the trust become irrevocable and the successor trustee that you designate in the trust document follows your wishes and distributes your assets according to your wishes.
You can make a list of your coin collections, memorabilia, antiques, and art with good descriptions and add this list to your trust document. Then, your successor trustee will be able to distribute the assets direct to your heirs soon after you die without going through probate.
Another advantage is that unlike a will, that is registered with the county and a public record, a trust document is confidential and does not have to be registered with the county. Only your successor trustee and heirs who are inheriting will know what is in the document. If you hire an attorney they too will have a copy.
Personal Observation (Caution)
When I first drew up our wills and trusts in 2004, I used a software package from another company and prepared individual revocable trusts, it did not provide for a joint trust for my wife and I. We never funded the individual trusts because we considered, after 45 years of marriage at the time, that we owned everything together. Neither of us could decide what to put in each of the individual trusts.
When I went to an attorney ten years later, and explained that we wanted to simplify our estate, he reviewed my documents and used the same individual trust format. It took months longer and cost thousands of dollars more than the attorney originally agreed to change to a joint trust that was more appropriate for us and our circumstances.
Fortunately,
the Living Trust Estate Planning on LegalZoom
includes the option for a joint revocable trust and
review buy an attorney. Quite a benefit considering local
attorneys will charge thousands for the same thing.
Plus, our local; attorney, the one who made up our documents charges over $350 an hour and I asked him for a simple yes or no question via an email message, he replied yes and sent a bill for $130!
If you are in the same mind set as my wife and I, you might want to consider a joint trust, it will save you time and money to get it done right the first time. The joint trust lives on after one of the pair dies, and you don't have to make up a new document, it simply becomes and individual trust after the first one passes on.
We still maintain a few individual accounts with beneficiaries (POD) for estate planning purposes. When either one of us dies first, a portion of our estate goes to our two adult children.
I believe, had our attorney spent more time during the initial interview getting to know us better, this would not have been an issue.
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