Can Form 8854 Guides 2023-2024

My name is Rob Burr, and I'm a planning and probate attorney here in southern Utah. When most people think about probate, they might not even know what it is. They just know that they need to avoid it. Probate is really just a court process where we ask the court to allow us to transfer the assets of the deceased person. It doesn't seem complicated, but it can be. Typically, the minimum amount of time for probate is about nine months, and it can become quite extensive. It can also cause a lot of rifts between family members. Overall, it's a process that we should try to avoid. There are four documents that everybody should have. The first one is a trust. A trust is a very powerful document because it can hold all of your assets. By doing this, we can avoid probate. It's a nice backup document because, in the event that someone becomes incapacitated, the assets held in the trust can be moved without needing to go to court. The successor trustee can handle it. Additionally, a trust is flexible. For example, if one of your kids is addicted to drugs or alcohol, you can make sure that their addiction is not funded. You can also reserve money strictly for education purposes or for when they get married. Trusts are customizable and provide flexibility. The next document is a pour-over will. We call it a pour-over will because it pours everything that we haven't placed in the trust into the trust when you pass away. So, even if you get a trust put together when you're younger, as you collect assets throughout your life, if you forget to place them in the trust, it's okay. When you pass away, the will will place those assets in the trust....