How business, doctors and journalists prey on your food anxieties I

eneticiat}-ofa licing trust . New York has aLcms insisted
there be a cotrustee in such cases, but is considering
legislation to scrap the requirement . Ohio took tiiat route
in 1992 .
Are you trusrless? You should be on the phone to rour
la«i•er now . Here are ti\ e basic tlacors that trusts conie itr.
The revocable lit4nT trust is a catchall that can h<strong>and</strong>le a
lot of chores for rou . Tvpically, you n :mie vourself trustee,
<strong>and</strong> make arrangements tor someone else (a relatiae, a
lantier or bank) to sene as successor trustee if i•ou die or
become incapacitated .
Bv itself a re~ncable trust cannot saxz vou uues . The
income is ta\able to vou during your life <strong>and</strong> the assets get
included in vour taxable estate at death .
So nhat do ~ou get out of iti In most
states (Connecticut is an esceptionj,
assets in the trust are not included
in the estate subject to probate
court tees, which run ttp to
S2,400 on a $2 million
estate in California .
4Vith the trust, vou
also escape the straitjacket
of statutoryeaecutors' fees, on
the books in some
stams . To be sure .
if vou are using a
bank or la~wer as
successor trustee,
\on hare to psn that bank or la«1°er for the work of
distributing tlie assets to cour beneficiaries . But at least
}-ou or % our heirs are in a position to haggle over an hourlc
rate . If pour estate consists of a 31 million brokerage
account <strong>and</strong> not much else, the statuton . executor fce
«ould be S3g,0Q0 ir.Ness1'ork, a°av out of line with the
work involved . Worse, Nea- York permits la«1ers to
extract rn•o fees ifnco exeattors are named .
Ifaou are paving by the hour, t'ou seill be better off si•ith
a trust because rour Iasvver ~Non't have to schedule
appointments with the probate court to get things done .
In recognition of this fact, Florida recently adopted
suggested legal fees for trust liquidation that are 25%
be!owthe suggested fees for administering an estate under
a%~'ill, according to iltiami la«yer Shenvin
Simmons .
The re%ocable living trust is
also the ideal vehicle for holding
title to real estate outside
your home state,
notes Deborah Tedford,
a Groton, Conn .
la«1 er .
Let's face it,
though ii 'e li% e
longer todav we
are that much
more likei% to be
~ incapacitated at
the end, b}a
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/agf97d00/pdf