You may have heard friends or family discussing the use of a trust in their estate plan and wondered if you should consider creating a trust as well. Trusts have become an increasingly popular estate planning component due in large part to the flexibility trusts offer and the multitude of goals and objectives that can be accomplished with a trust agreement. If you have never created a trust before, however, you may wonder “How long does it take to set up a trust?” There is no simple “one size fits all” answer to that question. The time it takes to set up a trust depends, in large part, on the type of trust you establish, the complexity of the trust terms, and the value of the assets used to fund the trust.
Trusts come in many forms and are used to accomplish numerous different goals. Trusts can be very simple or extremely complex. At its most basic, a trust agreement is an agreement wherein you place assets with a trustee who manages those assets for the benefit of a third party beneficiary. You enter into trust agreements all the time without realizing it. For example, if you ask a friend to hold onto an item until another friend picks it up, you created a trust agreement wherein you are the maker of the trust, the friend holding the item is the trustee, and the party picking up the item the beneficiary.
While a trust can be fairly simple and straightforward, a trust can also be complex and multi-layered. Specialized trusts such as a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust, a Generation Skipping Trust, or a Charitable Remainder Trust can include hundreds of trust terms and involve several types of valuable and complex assets. Understandably, the more complicated thee trust agreement the longer it takes to set up a trust.
A simple pet trust with few terms and funded solely with cash could be set up in a single appointment with your estate planning attorney. On the other hand, a specialized trust with complex assets could easily take several consultations to set up and then a few weeks or months afterward to successfully transfer all assets into the trust.
The best way to find out how long it will take to set up your trust is to consult with an experienced Texas estate planning attorney.
Stephen A. Mendel, Estate Planning Attorney
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