Living Trusts for Everyone: Why a Will Is Not the Way to Avoid Probate, Protect Heirs, and Settle Estates (Second Edition)

Great book very informative and easy to read

I was one of those people that thought a will was all you needed. I like this book for the straightforward knowledge regarding trusts. It’ll benefit anyone looking to talk to a trust attorney - you’ll know the type of questions to ask and how vague/serious your stipulations should be. It’s a very good book for reference.

Just what I needed! Very helpful!

This book is easy to read, has all the information I needed, organized well.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. I sat down in a weekend with a highlighter and my laptop and read this thing cover to cover. By the end of the weekend I had everything typed up that I wanted included in my trust/points to hit with the lawyer/ and a list of needed documents . This book is an easy to understand read with everything beautifully laid out. Not knowing anything at all about trusts prior to this book, I now feel confident about knowing which questions to ask to pick the right lawyer, how the process works, and what I need to make sure is included in my paperwork . This is a must read for every middle class person who grew up thinking trusts were only for the wealthy. Get the book!

Living Trusts For Everyone, Ronald Farrington SharpWhy a Will is not the way to avoid probate, protect heirs, and settle estates.This book will not qualify you to be your own lawyer and write your trust documents without a lawyer. It will tell you why almost everyone should have a trust, not just a will and some things you might want to include in your trust. It will help you with some of the legal language of trusts. Maybe most importantly, it has a lot of guidance for trustees who have to manage the trust and disburse assets when you are no longer able to. It has some information on estate taxes and how a trust should be written to minimize those taxes, but maybe not enough. It explains Qualified Terminal Interest Property but does not explain Credit Shelter Trusts. The author gets repetitive in telling you that some lawyers like to write just a will, because they can make a lot of money when the time comes to probate the estate. A trust, if fully funded, avoids probate and saves a lot of lawyer fees. It is an easy, quick read and I recommend reading it before you see a lawyer about creating a trust or will.

quality poor

This book will convince you to spend ~$3,500 to set up a living trust instead of ~$1,500 for a will. You’ll save more in the end.Apparently, for most people, a will is almost pointless — it doesn’t change the outcome if you didn’t have one and you still need to go through probate court. And going through probate takes months and costs a lot of money. That’s the real gist of the book.It’s an easy read. Read it in an evening.It’s not a sophisticated treatment of the topic. It’s a little repetitive (legit some copy and paste in places). It doesn’t give a lot of practical advice about nitty gritty structuring of the document. And the copy editing is a little poor.But! I’m satisfied and will keep it.I bought another book on trust funds because I’m interested in that. This book is really about a living will that is used to disposition the assets of the deceased in an efficient, cost effective (in terms of legal fees), and non-bureaucratic manner — not an ongoing trust. It does talk about ongoing trust funds, but not in too much detail if you’d like to set that up.

Only read a few chapters, but so far so good!

Good product- Good quality delivered on time as promised.

Easy to read & understand

An interesting if complex subject covered well. At least I thought the book had clarified a number of things and armed with my insight went to a local solicitor to put it all in place to be merely scoffed at for reading "self help book" that I was lead to believe was so out of date or wrongly construed that I could be lining the pockets of solicitor for quite a while if I acted on books advice!!!????? Mmmmmmmm I am going to another solicitor for new advice...... best of three policy?????

I'd love to review this but I didn't receive it. I remember wanting it and only remembered it because of this e-mail. Not sure what happened here because I'm not very good on the computer. It's probably something I did wrong but I'd still like to get this item.