If you have a living trust in place, it can probably be amended. It is, however, completely dependent on whether it is what is known as a Revocable Trust.
The majority of Trusts are revocable in nature, which is the legal wording used to also indicate that they are amendable, or can be changed. This is the type of Trust that I prepare for 95% of my clients, as it is almost always necessary that things be changed over time.
This is because our personal and legal lives change with time – we all get older, if we have children they age and their needs grow, our financial situation evolves. If someone prepared what we call an Irrevocable Trust for you in the past, we hope that the preparer had a real good reason to do so!
If you are not sure what you have, please contact me. I will review the document to shed light on how it is structured, and I will do so for no professional fee.
While there is no legal requirement in Illinois that a Lawyer has to be hired by a home seller, as a practicality it is nearly impossible and certainly ill-advised to represent oneself. There are many documents that need to be drafted, almost all of them fairly complex and detailed. Additionally, the negotiations that often occur […]
When I meet with prospective Estate Planning clients for the first time, it is very common for most people to believe that an effective Estate Plan must be complicated. This is generally not the case. A well drafted document – whether it is a Will or a Living Trust – should be not only legally […]
This unfortunately happens far too often. As people age, sometimes their ability to safeguard their assets diminishes. Fortunately there are laws to protect senior citizens, and each case of potential financial abuse is unique based on the facts at work. Parents, aunts/uncles or close friends who are seniors may often be reluctant to share information […]
While there is no general rule of thumb as to how often an Estate Plan should be updated, I tell my valued clients that they should make an appointment to see me whenever something significant happens in their lives – birth of a child or a grand-child, retirement, inheritance, as a few example. One of the […]