What protection is available by a Revocable Living Trust?
A revocable living trusts is a vehicle that is very helpful in avoiding probate. During your lifetime, you can transfer ownership of your assets to the revocable trust so that it is owned by the trust at the time of your death, and thus not subject to probate. A revocable trust is not a very good asset protection technique – assets that you transfer to the trust will remain available to your creditors. However, it does make it more difficult for creditors to access these assets; before doing so, the creditor must petition a court for a charging order to enable the creditor to get to the assets held in the trust. In addition, in most instances a revocable trust becomes irrevocable, usually upon the death of the grantor. Once it is irrevocable, a typical “anti-alienation clause” protects the assets held in the trust form being used as collateral by the trust beneficiaries. While the assets are held in the trust, the beneficiaries do not have control over the property, and any distributio
A revocable “living” trust is a vehicle that is very helpful in avoiding probate. During your lifetime, you can transfer ownership of your assets to the revocable trust so that it is owned by the trust at the time of your death, and thus not subject to probate. A revocable trust is not a very good asset protection technique – assets that you transfer to the trust will remain available to your creditors. However, it does make it more difficult for creditors to access these assets; before doing so, the creditor must petition a court for a charging order to enable the creditor to get to the assets held in the trust. In addition, in most instances a revocable trust becomes irrevocable, usually upon the death of the grantor. Once it is irrevocable, a typical “anti-alienation clause” protects the assets held in the trust from being used as collateral by the trust beneficiaries. While the assets are held in the trust, the beneficiaries do not have control over the property, and any distributi
