I have a relative that has a trust based estate plan but their checking account is not in the name of the trust. There are a few issues. We were told that the checking account should not be in the trust by their attorney, not sure why, maybe so they could pay and receive funds in their name not the trusts. Secondly we were told that all non-trust assets should be kept below $30K to avoid probate.
Problem is, very hard to keep the checking account under $30K, say nothing about that plus any other assets. The question I have is what to do. One idea would be to add pay-on-death to the checking account so that it immediately gets transferred to the trust outside of the estate. Would this solve the problem? Are there reasons the checking account should not be POD? Are there other ideas and options?
I know people that put there executor as Joint on their checking account, but that seems crazy to me. Am I wrong about that?
Thanks. Any thoughts are helpful.
Problem is, very hard to keep the checking account under $30K, say nothing about that plus any other assets. The question I have is what to do. One idea would be to add pay-on-death to the checking account so that it immediately gets transferred to the trust outside of the estate. Would this solve the problem? Are there reasons the checking account should not be POD? Are there other ideas and options?
I know people that put there executor as Joint on their checking account, but that seems crazy to me. Am I wrong about that?
Thanks. Any thoughts are helpful.
Statistics: Posted by tetrad — Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:02 pm — Replies 22 — Views 949