Trusts Attorneys in Charlotte

Helping Families in Charlotte & the Surrounding Areas

Our experienced legal team at Rech Law, P.C. can help you create a trust that provides you and your loved ones with peace of mind. A trust is a legal arrangement in which an individual, the trustee, holds legal title for the benefit of the beneficiaries, or the people who benefit from the assets held in the trust. There are many advantages to having a trust, including the ability to deal with assets outside of probate court.

Whenever someone dies with a will, his or her will must go through the probate court, which can be costly and take a long period of time. With a trust, your assets can be distributed outside of court, which is much typically a faster process.

Once the trust is created, and the trustee and beneficiaries have been designated, the person who has created the trust has the ability to transfer property and asset ownership to the trust, so that upon his or her death all real property and possessions can be distributed accordingly.

To speak with our experienced Charlotte trust lawyer, contact us online or give us a call at (704) 659-0007 today.

How Does Making a Trust Actually Work? What Are the Requirements?

Unlike a will, you don't need to sign a trust in front of witnesses to make it legally enforceable in North Carolina. Instead, you simply need to draft a trust document (doing this with the help of an attorney is advisable), assign enough property to the trust to fund it, and sign the trust in front of a notary public.

The Process of Developing a Trust in NC

Let's explore how the process of developing a trust in more detail.

• Firstly, you'll want to determine whether you want a joint or single trust. Even if you're married, you can still establish a single trust for your property, but forming a joint trust with your spouse may be beneficial if you want to award property separate to your will in a matter that opposes state intestacy laws (the statutes defining how property gets distributed when there is no will or trust in place).
• Next, you need to choose what kind of trust you want. You can make your trust revocable (meaning you can adjust the trust after establishing it or revoke property awarded to beneficiaries in the trust) or irrevocable (meaning you can't adjust the trust after establishing it).
  • The most popular type of trust is a living revocable trust, which a trustee (the person in charge of the trust) can establish while alive and adjust throughout their life.
• After choosing the format of your trust, you need to name a successor trustee. The successor trustee is responsible for taking control of the trust once the trustee dies or becomes incapacitated.
• After setting up a successor trustee and completing the previous steps, the final matter is drafting the trust and funding it. Setting up a trust with the help of a lawyer is advisable, so you can ensure the document is legally sound. You fund the trust by allocating property to it, which also involves signing over ownership of that property to the individual who will inherit it, including changing names on titles as necessary.

Our Charlotte trust attorneys will work with you to ensure that you have a comprehensive, equitable trust protecting your interests and assets.

Other Advantages of a Trust

Our Charlotte trust lawyers can create a trust with many benefits, such as:

• Protecting your assets if you become mentally incapacitated in the future;
• Providing you control over your assets; and
• Creating privacy for yourself and your family.